Cold Water by Dave Hutchinson

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I picked this book up because it was a book club selection (science fiction). It’s a slog. I read the whole thing… but honestly can’t tell you with certainty why some people are calling it science fiction. Beyond one quasi-science fictionesque bit, this could be a current day spy novel. Sure there are ‘alternate’ world aspects here, but there isn’t enough difference to make me believe any of it. The vast majority of the references and cultural world building stuff could just as easily be today.

Notably I didn’t call it a ‘spy thriller’. I didn’t find it particularly ‘thrilling’ either. I just kept rolling to confirm what I thought about the plot. I was essentially correct, but the ending (that slammed down very quickly) didn’t seem to fit the rest of the book. The reason behind the mystery wasn’t enough to wow me… or impress me at all really.

I couldn’t really tell you the difference between the main character from Texas and the police officer from… Poland? Estonia? Dunno and don’t really care. The young woman hacker that we got almost no information about was just as interesting (cloth computer?) None of them moved me.

I’ve seen that this is being developed as a television series. I can’t imagine that working, but I’ll be interested to see how they handle the visual aspects of the lone ‘science fiction’ piece of it. I don’t suspect it’s a thing I’ll watch more than one episode of.



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