We were lucky enough to receive a copy of Tom Gillespie’s The Strange Book of Jacob Boyce to review. Before we get into that, here’s the blurb.
A Spiralling Obsession. A Missing Wife. A Terrifying Truth. Will he find her before it’s too late?
When Dr Jacob Boyce’s wife goes missing, Glasgow CID put it down to a simple marital dispute. Jacob, however, fears something darker. Following her trail to Spain, he becomes convinced that Ella’s disappearance is tied to a mysterious painting whose hidden geometric and numerical riddles he’s been obsessively collating in a notebook, and trying to solve for months.
Obscure, hallucinogenic clues, and bizarre, larger-than-life characters, guide an increasingly unhinged Jacob through a nightmarish Spanish landscape to an art forger’s studio in Madrid, where he comes face-to-face with a centuries-old horror, and the terrifying, mind-bending, truth about his wife.
The Strange Book of Jacob Boyce is indeed strange but in a magnificently original way. I found myself, like Jacob, losing my own balance and grip on reality as the story unfurls, and the writer expertly plays conjuring tricks to deceive and lead the reader into labyrinthian puzzles and twisting alleyways.
This is Umberto Eco relocated to Glasgow and filmed by David Lynch. It is not only a smart, brilliantly written masterclass in deception, it is also a cracking edge of your seat thriller… not an easy feat to pull off but Tom Gillespie wins big! By the end of the book my mind was spiralling with questions and I wanted to start all over again to try and find the pieces of the jigsaw I’d somehow missed first time.
A thoroughly enjoyable ghost train ride of a read. I guarantee you won’t read anything else quite like it.
The Strange Book of Jacob Boyce is available on Amazon now. Grab it from the links below.
Tom Gillespie grew up in a small town just outside Glasgow. After completing a Masters in English at Glasgow University, he spent the next ten years valiantly attempting to avoid work. Sadly, the authorities finally caught up with him and he now lives in Bath with his wife, daughter and hyper-neurotic cat, where he teaches at the University and writes in the the narrow gaps between.