Book #41: Blink of An Eye (Whitney Book #17)

Title: Blink of an Eye
Author: Gregg Luke

It's been a week since I finished Gregg Luke's Blink of an Eye and I can hardly remember what happened. I don't think that's a great sign. I had a lot of fun with Gregg Luke's Whitney finalist last year (about a potential terror threat at Utah State) but this book had a lot less compelling action. The first scene opens with Joseph Ramirez getting hit by a cement truck. For the next 300 pages he sits in a hospital bed (for seven weeks! Who stays in the hospital for seven weeks anymore?) and dreams bad dreams about his childhood with his abusive fatherhood, a childhood he'd manage to repress for nearly 20 years. I think it's hard to write an interesting action-based thriller when the main character sits in bed the whole time (I'm just sayin'). Luke's work was reminiscent of Finding Mercie in his attempt to capture the accent of a Spanish speaker (Joseph's parents were Guatemalan immigrants), and I wasn't sure how well the side romantic story worked. The major romantic twist of the novel also felt a little strange-- I was pretty sure that one of the two characters involved would have remembered their prior meeting, given how significant it was. Anyway, I know Gregg Luke has the chops to write a good thriller, but this time, with Joseph bound in bed, it felt like the action never really got off the ground.