THE UNSEEN
T. L. Hines
Thomas Nelson
Thriller
ISBN: 9781595544520
Lucas lives in places few people have ever seen. Like a shadow, he slips through steam tunnels, crawl spaces and ceiling ductwork, shimmying past signs that warn of danger, high voltage and no entrance. He is “the unseen,” living vicariously through the people on whom he spies in the Washington, D.C. metro area. A loner by nature, he relies on his keen senses for survival, moving from one public building to the next as he sets up temporary “homes.” But Lucas is not alone. A chance meeting one night with another urban explorer whisks him out of his comfortable, hidden world and into a whirlwind of danger and espionage.
Lucas’s memories begin at age six, where he lived in an orphanage until he turned 18. Everything prior to that is a blank --- not hazy or sketchy, just completely blank. Even his orphanage memories are limited, with no friendships or life-changing experiences for him to recall. With no loved ones to call his own, he thrives on imagining the lives of those he sees through the tiny holes he drills in closets and ceiling tiles. Lucas watches and listens, waiting for night’s blanket of darkness to cover him so he can take little souvenirs from unsuspecting office workers --- a photo here, a scarf there, a trinket or a greeting card. Gazing at the smiling faces and kind words somehow calms him for reasons he doesn’t understand. He lives this way for years, until someone enters his private world. In a heartbeat, that world starts caving in around him.
When Lucas meets a member of the Creep Club, he is led into a labyrinth of lies and spies, secret agents and double agents, and moments of fear unlike any he has ever known. One Creep Club meeting is enough for Lucas to know that he’s nothing like these guys who take creeping to a completely different level, spying on people in their homes and recording what they do. Soon, however, Creep Club members are turning up dead, and all signs point to Lucas as the reason.
Bad guys and good guys aren’t always who they appear to be in this captivating novel. Of all his new “contacts,” good, bad and in-between, the one who strikes the most fear in him is the mystery person who follows him --- the man with Lucas’s face. Worse, it isn’t long before there are two of them. And not only is his face on two other people, it is splashed across the newspaper’s front page daily as he is hunted by police for kidnappings and murders he did not commit.
T.L. Hines combines amazing attention to detail, hateful and likable characters, and plenty of action with a unique, fascinating storyline. This well-researched novel just keeps rushing forward like a whitewater river, twisting and turning, keeping the reader on edge until the grand finale. Let THE UNSEEN take you into the very believable, albeit creepy world of these urban explorer spies. You may never look at a hole in the wall the same way again.
--- Reviewed by Susan Miura
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