View source for Pendulum by Adam Hamdy

{{infobox
|title=Pendulum
|author=Adam Hamdy
|reviewer=Peter Magee
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=A cracking fast-paced thrilled which is impossible to put down. Highly recommended.
|rating=4.5
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=496/14h13m
|publisher=Headline
|date=November 2016
|isbn=978-1472236159
|website=http://www.adamhamdy.com/
|video=
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472236157</amazonuk>
}}

There's no time wasted with a gentle introduction: we interrupt an attempted murder.  John Wallace - ordinary John Wallace - is about to be hanged by a man in a black mask who has invaded his apartment.  The fact that it's happening is bad enough, but ''why'' is it happening, and to Wallace?  It's fate which intervenes and Wallace escapes.  He's going to keep escaping and I'm not going to tell you a great deal more about the plot: you're better off reading what Adam Hamdy has written than my version of it.  It's sufficient to say that the pace and the action never let up and you're not going to get the answers until the final pages.

To begin with, I thought the plot was ''unlikely'', possibly even ''unrealistic'', but Donald Trump has just been elected President of the United States - so who am I to say what's unlikely?  And it wasn't long before I was completely caught up in the story: I read it over a couple of days, unwilling to put it down until I found out who was responsible for the events which had led to the attack on Wallace.  The author has a gift for keeping you in suspense throughout and at no stage had I worked out who or what was behind the murderous attacks.  All I could do was to keep reading.

The pace is fast and at times the story is violent, but not gratuitously so and not something which will offend anyone who enjoys a good fast-paced thriller.  I liked Wallace as a character, a man not without his faults, but someone to whom we could all relate, rather than the James Bond stereotypes which so often inhabit thrillers.

As I was read I was conscious that the story created strong visual images and it was no surprise to learn that ''Pendulum'' is being developed by NBC as a television series.  Hamdy has been hired by NBC to adapt the novel, so hopefully it will remain true to the original concept: read the book first though - just to be on the safe side.

I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag.

Bookbag has been impressed by Hamdy's books before: he's got an excellent [[:Category:Adam Hamdy|back catalogue]].

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