The Intruders

Starred review from June 4, 2007
Bestseller Marshall (The Straw Men
) outdoes his own high standards with this potent blend of suspense, paranoia and just plain creepiness. Jack Whalen, a former L.A. cop, is pursuing a new career as a writer in an idyllic small town just east of Seattle when weird things start to undermine his pursuit of the American dream. First, an old acquaintance from Jack's childhood suddenly turns up with a strange tale about a double homicide; then Jack's wife, an advertising executive, disappears briefly on a business trip. Is he going crazy, or is she leading some sort of secret life? And what about these disturbing spells he keeps having, these fleeting sensations of otherness, in which his own existence is unfamiliar to him? Meanwhile, down the coast in Portland, a nine-year-old girl having similar visions has gone missing. As Jack investigates, he stumbles onto a secret much darker than he ever could have anticipated. Marshall ingeniously threads these strands together into a provocative and supremely intelligent thriller that reads like a cross between Andrew Klavan and Philip K. Dick.