A solid mystery thriller, the late gathering momentum compared to "The Three" Unfortunately a disappointment

The mystery thriller The Three (dt. The Three) through a series of unexplained plane crashes of Sarah Lotz was one of my absolute reading highlights of last year, therefore I have for months Lotz new novel Day Four feverishly. One directly anticipate, because both the publisher information and the match The Three-designed cover design could potentially lead to misunderstandings: Day Four is not a sequel, but tells an independent and (at least more or less, but more on that later) in self-contained story takes this but in the same universe as the alleged predecessor, so that the plane crashes every now and then discussed at the edge and also a few familiar characters sometimes mentioned briefly. However, it is for the reading comprehension is clearly not necessary to The Three must read, so that even newcomers to this adventurous cruise dare into the unknown.

Here it is unfortunately also to dampen expectations a little bit because of adventure in the history for a long time to feel nothing. Although summarizes Sarah Lotz the first three days aboard the Beautiful Dreamer already succinctly with the opening chapter only from the words Cruise is Relatively uneventful existing together and goes directly to the fateful fourth day of the cruise, nevertheless happened on board the vessel initially extremely little. While the passengers of the crew gradually taught to gently is that one should first be stranded at sea in the middle and yet may please be patient and calm, Sarah Lotz uses the initial phase to introduce the main characters of their story. As in The Three action will again be described from the perspective of several characters, which Lotz time being dispense with the famous from the previous found footage style and all usually describes the events of the third person. So you then hits from one chapter to the participants of this story: a young woman who has the thankless perform job of assistant to a renowned clairvoyant / charlatan, two elderly ladies who arranged to meet on the cruiser for joint suicide, several members of the crew from simple housekeeping on the ship's doctor up to the security staff as well as a long-suffering husband with a dark secret only the blogger Xavier falls stylistically out a little from the crowd and comes in the form of his short blog entries on the situation on board.

The first half of the book is then also a bit similar to the situation of people on board: Due to the complete failure of the electronics of the operation of the ship is almost come to a complete standstill and the feel not only the passengers, the accustomed to hot meals, television or sacrificing function of sanitary facilities, but also the reader. On a somewhat in the tooths cruise ship there is in such a position simply not much to do, and so most travelers vegetate more or less to himself, while the story about as fast progressing as the Beautiful Dreamer on the high seas: little or not at all. That sounds pretty boring and if you do evil means by Sarah Lotz, it is probably also, but the leisurely narrative pace in my opinion is not the problem of Day Four, because the author manages by describing almost banal situations that one in itself Reading can empathize with the situation of people and you almost self becomes impatient passenger who increasingly tense waiting for finally something might happen. I found the first half and not long-winded, because I personally just the writing style of Sarah Lotz well liked and I found the characters interesting, finally, was The Three certainly no high-speed thriller, but worked primarily on creating a very special atmosphere and a more subtle tension build. And atmospheric trip to the Beautiful Dreamer is definitely, albeit probably differently than you would have expected it before: stay Despite occasional unexplained phenomena and sightings and the much-heralded killer aboard story (which, incidentally, relatively inconsequential fails) the Mystery elements rather rare, instead transfers rather the tension of travelers in its exceptional situation on the reader.

The crux of Day Four for me is therefore not that the story is too quiet, but rather that the relationship is wrong: Of the 340 pages of the paperback edition is strictly 286 pages a very long prologue to the final act, the then not only a content, but also stylistic twist has suddenly Day Four is in fact out of the blue exactly what one would have hoped for from the very beginning: mysterious, disturbing, unexplainable, confusing and overwhelming. The last chapter had all the things I had loved at The Three so and one wonders when reading why they only had to wait so long for this thrust. Unfortunately this noise is also very quickly over and you felt like you were on a roller coaster that is only seemingly leisurely pulled into the air indefinitely, then shuts again after a few extremely spectacular seconds in the station: just when it awesome is, is also already concluded. In addition, Sarah Lotz sets as with The Three on an open end, which I think is in principle quite fascinating, because so much is left to the imagination of the reader in the case of Day Four but this is clearly too much, because in no time raised many questions be, but only a fraction of the above answers and one is left helpless at the end (and probably a little angry). To my mind the book around 100 pages is just too short, because the little information that Sarah Lotz reveals finally, enough for me simply to compel rough understanding of history not from, and that is not just stimulating to think further, but only frustrating.

Thus Day Four is for me unfortunately by far not able to match the genius of The Three and turns out to be unfortunately a bit of a disappointment: I liked the book, despite the leisurely pace and unspectacular for long periods History did indeed fall and I was not bored, total leaves me the novel but just due to the extremely unsatisfactory conclusion quite dissatisfied back. The Three Who loved, this cruise may be assuming a muted expectations quite a chance, but who already could start by airplane thriller is probably not much and certainly not come here at his own expense.