56 Days

 

Author: Catherine Ryan Howard

Narrator: Alana Kerr Collins

Publisher: Blackstone

Year: 2021

Could you have spent last year’s covid lockdown with someone you just met? 

Ciara and Oliver are new to Dublin and meet just when covid is starting. When Ireland goes into lockdown, they decide to move into Oliver’s apartment to ride out lockdown together. They barely know each other and both have secrets. The police are called when a decomposing body is found in the apartment. Was it an accident or something more sinister? 

This was an instant bestseller when it published last month. The story is tightly plotted and the writing is crisp. The characters are interesting and I loved the big twists! Author Catherine Ryan Howard takes her time unfolding the characters’ secrets making more of an impact when all is revealed. Alana Kerr Collins’ narration is wonderful. She really conveys a sense of place and that feeling of uncertainty we all felt when covid first intruded on our lives. 

I’ve read some pandemic books since the onslaught of covid, but they were sci-fi or historical fic. Chuck Wendig’s Wanderers and Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel both have society falling apart due to pandemics. Emma Donoghue’s The Pull of the Stars features a maternity ward nurse during the flu pandemic of 1918. Michael Connelley’s The Law of Innocence mentions the first tendrils of the covid pandemic toward the end of the book. 56 Days sets the mystery against the backdrop of the start of the pandemic and lockdown. Howard makes it work. She weaves together a taut thriller and makes sure the intrigue isn’t overshadowed by the pandemic. It will be interesting to see how other authors might incorporate lockdown and the pandemic into their work. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Happy #thrillerthursday! The weekend is in sight! What are y’all looking forward to this weekend? 

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