We Are Here

WE ARE HERE Michael Marshall Mulholland Books ISBN 9780316252577 Trade Paperback Thriller

You never know where Michael Marshall is going to take you. Just when you think you have things in hand, a grasp of where things are headed, he takes you down a down a totally unexpected path that upends all of your suppositions.His books make demands; one more often than not has to pass the guard at WTF before entering the land of OMG to get a grasp of what is going on. The reader’s patience is always ultimately rewarded, however. That has never been more true than in WE ARE HERE, his latest novel.

Before we begin, let me provide you with a couple of warnings, one major and one minor. The minor one is that WE ARE HERE features a character who was a primary protagonist in Marshall’s 2009 novel BAD THINGS; one does not have to be familiar with the latter work, however, to enjoy the new one. The major warning:if you spend even part of your existence wondering if people --- even total strangers --- are conspiring against you, or following you, observing you, or otherwise meddling in your life, WE ARE HERE is going to tap right into that vein and mainline a boost to you. Oh, here’s another: Marshall wastes no time disorienting the reader, going in quick succession from a man on the run who meets his fate in a rundown rural motel room to an unsettling encounter in Penn Station between David, a soon-to-be-published fledging author and a stranger who is vaguely familiar. At the same time, a former attorney turned bartender/waiter named John and Kristina, his edgy lover, agree to do a favor for Catherine, a member of Kristina’s book group. Catherine has the uncomfortable feeling that she is being followed, or watched, or something. John, whose previously acquired skill set includes some surveillance techniques, agrees to shadow her and discovers that yes, indeed, she is being watched by someone who is perhaps best characterized as...insubstantial. This leads John to a well-intentioned clergyman, a group of people who exist on the fringes of society (and possibly of existence) and an extremely dangerous character who makes no bones about warning John away. This of course is like waving a cape in front of a bull, as far as John is concerned, particularly when John and Kristina begin receiving messages written on the window of their fifth story flat in Greenwich Village. While this is developing David is trying, without any success at all, to write the follow-up to his soon-to-be-published novel, all the while keeping a secret from his pregnant wife Dawn. The stranger David encountered in Penn Station, however, keeps turning up, and suddenly David remembers, or thinks he remembers, who he is.

You might ask: is there a link between these very disparate storylines in WE ARE HERE? Yes, there is, one that even includes that relative short but very memorable vignette in the motel room. The answer would give away the carefully constructed farm which Marshall has built, and I don’t want to do that; let us say for our purposes that it covers everything from the perceptions of children to religion to emotional disturbances and beyond. Oh, and if you are looking for explosions and fisticuffs there is a bit of that in WE ARE HERE as well. The result is a work that defies easy genre classification. Is it a thriller? Indeed, and a mystery, and perhaps a horror novel, with a New Age element or two tossed in as well. And while WE ARE HERE is at times a challenging book to follow, it is one that will stay with you beyond its cataclysmic ending.

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
© Copyright 2014, The Book Report, Inc. All rights reserved.

New York City is a seething and vibrant mass of humanity, and in the shadows, those that are unseen lurk. However, they’re tired of being invisible, and the time has come to do something about that. This is the basis for WE ARE HERE. The book primarily follows John Henderson and his live-in girlfriend, Kristina, and new author David, and his wife Dawn. If you’re familiar with Michael Marshall’s previous work, you’ll recognize John from 2009’s BAD THINGS. John has a bit of a past, and is still reeling from the death of his young son, and his subsequent divorce from his wife and estrangement from his other son. However, he’s happy with Kristina and although it’s clear that they could use some new surroundings, things are good. When Kristina asks John to look into something for her new friend Catherine, the structure of their lives begins to waver. Catherine believes someone is stalking her, and it soon becomes apparent that something untoward is happening. Is it someone from her past? A scorned lover, or a stranger? As John and Kristina investigate, they discover a group of people living on the fringes, or so they think, but they seem like so much more than just forgotten people. They are indeed more, and a man called Reinhart is intent on exploiting them, but to what end?

If it seems as if I’m being vague, there’s a reason for that. I don’t want to give too much away because to do that would be to spoil what makes this novel such a good read. Michael Marshall is a pro at weaving the fantastic with the mundane, and We Are Here is no exception. It’s hard not to get invested with John and Kristina, and by the time you get to the final revelations, you’re thoroughly entrenched in their lives, as well as the lives of David, Dawn, and even the “others.” In fact, the “others” are just as vivid as the main characters, and indeed, Michael Marshall could write an entire book, or books, just about them, easily. Although We Are Here is certainly an effective suspense novel, it’s also about how our lives intersect in myriad ways, on a daily basis, even if we’re not quite aware of these encounters and their consequences. There’s also a bit of observation about how social media has separated us while seeming to bring us closer. Marshall is also very, very good at ramping up the creep factor and although We Are Here is a slow burn infused with creeping dread, the payoff (at least for me) was very worth it. If you haven’t tried anything by Michael Marshall, but enjoy John Connolly’s work, and subtly creepy reads, I urge you to give this one a try.

We are here by Michael Marshall. Published by Mulholland Posted on December 3, 2013 by cayocosta72

David is on the trip of a lifetime. He and his wife are headed to New York to meet David’s new publisher. It looks as though he may finally be realizing his dream of becoming an author. At Penn Station on the way home, David bumps into a stranger who begins to follow him. Just as David and his wife are about to board the train the man whispers to him “remember me”. The man follows David home, and very unusual things begin to happen in his life. At the same time a man named John has offered to help a friend who believes that she’s being stalked. But nothing is as it seems and as these two men’s lives intertwine, they rush toward a collision with disaster.
Marshall is a master of suspense. Each one of his books is better than the one before. We are here is his best novel to date and that is saying something indeed. Highly recommended