This book is going to hook you and leave you hanging. Written by award-winning Canadian author Lisa Moore, Caught follows David Slaney, a young man who escapes from a Canadian prison in the late ‘70s. Once free, Slaney hitchhikes across Canada to get back to his best friend and partner in crime for one last drug run.
Slaney’s paranoia is infectious and absorbing. He’s always looking over his shoulder for the police, always questioning who he can trust and who trusts him. Meanwhile, the police appear around every corner — or at least every corner of Slaney’s mind. The book hooked me at first, but later it got pretty repetitive and often too coincidental.
One issue is the time period. The book is set in the seventies, but it never felt like the story was truly there. Of course, the point is to make the story universal to current and future readers. But I feel as though the date was only pushed back so readers wouldn’t wonder why no one had a cellphone.
When I wasn’t wondering where the phones went, I kept expecting a huge plot twist. The constant foreshadowing, paranoia and police presence built the impression that everything is about to change. Sadly, the plot stays predictable. The second half felt incomplete. Maybe I would’ve been better off reading it backwards.