All Fall Down

by Tom Bale

[Leah]

All Fall Down is one of those books that starts off mundane enough – a family barbecue in the back garden, on a beautiful day, until it’s ruined by a knock on the garden gate. A man is fatally injured, whispers, “Help me” and all of a sudden the Turner family are thrust into a nightmare of epic proportions. I was so intrigued with the start to this novel – who was the man? Was he sent to the Turner’s garden for a reason? Was there more than meets the eye of the Turner’s? WHAT WAS GOING ON? I was gripped. I wanted to know more – and the short, snappy chapters helped immensely, because they always seemed to end of a bit of a cliff-hanger so that you had to read just one more chapter.

It takes until half the book to understand what is really going on with the Turner’s. There is heavy, heavy suspense and you just KNOW something bad’s going to happen, but you aren’t quite sure what it is. You don’t know if the Turner family are just being paranoid – perhaps the girl on the doorstep, claiming to be a friend of Evan really IS a friend of Evan. Maybe they’re black sheep of a son Josh took the old laptop. Yet you’re never 100% sure and much like Mark and Wendy, I was just as confused, waiting for the ball to drop, waiting for the villain to reveal itself in all its glory. It all seems to just be pootling along, until you get to that 50% mark and then all hell breaks loose and it’s intense.

I kinda feel like this was more of a plot driven novel than a character driven novel – that it just happened to be the Turner’s who found that man and I didn’t really feel like I knew enough about the family to care too hard about them – why did Josh leave? Why did he avoid his family’s calls? What was the deal with Georgia? There was a lot left unsaid. Yes, we lear Georgia’s history but we never know what happened with Josh, why he seemed to ignore his whole family. It all seemed to hinge on their family holiday to Norfolk and I’m loathe to really talk about it because it’s just so hard to wrap your head around, it will literally blow your mind.

I really, really enjoyed All Fall Down. It was a different thriller to what usually happens – no one went missing! There were no unreliable narrators! It was gripping, thrilling and so incredibly hard to put down. I honestly could barely believe what I was reading – it seemed so fantastical and yet.. There are people like that in the world. There are people who do what happens to the Turner’s and I just keep wondering how I would react in a similar situation (hint: I would die, let’s be real). This is my first Tom Bale novel but it certainly won’t be my last, because I enjoyed it so, so much. It had such a compelling plot, such a good voice and it’s one I’ll remember for ages.