Book info

• Title Look Both Ways
• Author Linwood Barclay
• Year 2022
• Genre Thriller

The residents of Garrett Island are part of a ground-breaking experiment. For a month, their cars will be replaced by self-driving vehicles – voice-controlled, comfortable and safe. Single mum Sandra is prepping for the huge media event, and she’s ready for a driverless future. Widowed after her husband fell asleep at the wheel, she’s relieved that her kids may never need to drive themselves. But as the day gets underway, disaster strikes. A journalist vanishes, possibly murdered. And before long, it’s clear something is very wrong. The cars are no longer taking orders from their passengers. They’re starting to organise. They’re starting to hunt. And they’ve got the residents of Garrett Island in their sights.

Thoughts

I’ve seen reviews of this book that aren’t necessarily so positive because readers are used to a certain style of Linwood Barclay and this is a bit different. Luckily, I don’t have that problem, I don’t think I’ve read any of his works before. This was good but it wasn’t quite as coherent as I would have liked. The concept is brilliant and totally believable but it goes a bit far - of course there’s a chance of AI cars being hacked but are they really going to be able to gang up on a person and figure out how to climb an escalator together? I don’t know. Weirdly, it felt a bit derivative of Jurassic Park. But an interesting read, anyway.

Rating: 3 / 5