Left Behind, Martine Kropkowski

A mystery thriller that turns into an unresolved dystopian nightmare was not what I was expecting when I started LEFT BEHIND. Nor was it necessarily obviously where it was heading as the story of a camping trip to K'gari started out. Two couples, connected through Des and Luke's shared training as paramedics, Annabelle and Luke are married - and there are tensions. Des and Julianni are recently dating, and in the early stages of discovery and doubt. The tension between the married couple is palpable, right from the start of the story, although most of the view of that is seen through Annabelle's eyes, and there's more than a hint of Luke being controlling, and her being a bit lost and unsure of her future.

The tension is heightened by some odd things happening on the island when they arrive there with the spectre of an incoming cyclone adding to that - is it the heavy air that comes before a storm that's making everything seem so overwhelming or is it the strange man that Annabelle keeps catching moving around in the dark, digging in sand off the side of darkened tracks, moving large items, popping up in all sorts of peculiar places. Even stranger when it turns out he's the "friend" that Luke suddenly announces is supposed to be joining them. Then there's the late night moaning in the amenities block, and a missing pair of campers who just vanish, leaving their belongings abandoned near the beach.

Told as it is mostly through Annabelle's eyes it's really hard to tell if this is just a woman who is jumping at shadows because she's on knife-edged tense before they even get to the island, or there's something else going on with Luke. Or his friend, or the ranger, or the missing campers, or Julianni who is a dab hand with a fishing knife and up for a lot of things that Annabelle's sure are dangerous. Swimming with sharks anyone? Which leaves you with a hefty potential metaphor of sharks on land as well. Or maybe you've got an unreliable narrator. Or maybe things are going to get weird. Which lordy they do. 

The first half of the novel is very much a real world, no idea what's happening here but something's going to happen, in a glorious location, with a palpable atmosphere. The second half of the novel is ... well let's go with not quite what I was expecting from the lead up. What starts out as an exercise in extreme psychological tension with a potentially unreliable narrator or two, or at the very least some very sensitive ones, doesn't necessarily end in personal jeopardy but goes big. Very big. 

Steeped in atmospheric, odd, off putting and it has to be said very engaging tension, the ambiguous ending of this one is going to be pitch perfect for some readers, and teeth endangering for others. Either way I'd suggest coming to this for the dread, the sense of foreboding in the bright sun and holiday atmosphere, and ... well for the weird that seems to be setting up the idea that it doesn't really matter a jot just how fraught your personal situation is when there are considerably bigger, world wide threats on the doorstep.