“The Spiral” is written by Australian author Iain Ryan, who has twice been shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Award. Billed as a crime noir thriller, I was totally caught out by how unpredictable and wacky “The Spiral” actually was. For the first third, I followed the story - alternating between Erma and her dream character Sero but I didn’t expect to read the amount of fantasy fiction that was incorporated. This took the novel to whole new level of imagination needed to fully understand the plot. To be honest, it was all a bit too much for me and I was left baffled, lost and utterly clueless as to what had gone on. Based on the old fashioned ‘choose your own adventure’ magazines and stories, this is an excellent novel for fans of that type of genre but I was left disappointed. The amount of hype and publicity I’d seen for this book, gave me high expectations but sadly, even though I enjoy fantasy stories that have elements of realism, this was just a bit too much for me to enjoy. Unless you’re happy with a story that has no relationship to crime thrillers and sends your mind into a spiral of misunderstanding, I would personally stay clear. I wish I had.
2 stars
2 stars