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I always feel a little bad whenever I review a book which I can’t find serious flaws with but which overall I still didn’t really like. Only because the author hasn’t done anything wrong, but I have to tell people that I’m not recommending the book anyway.
Jennifer Bradbury, however, has won a couple awards and has been nominated for a couple more, so the disdain of a third rate blogger shouldn’t rile her too much and that soothes my guilt.
As I said above, Shift doesn’t do anything wrong. Bradbury writes well, characters act in believable ways, although they are painted in broad strokes. The plot is paced well, making the reader turn the pages to find out what happens.
The plot is simple enough. Chris and Win go on a cross country bike trip. Chris comes back, Win doesn’t, and there it is. Win’s father and the FBI pressure Chris to tell them where Win’s gotten off to, and Chris finally decides that he’d like the answer to that question himself. Is win dead, captured by cultists, just on the lamb?
The author does give the reader an answer, and it is satisfying and unambiguous, and that gives the novel points in my book. I think what I object too about the novel is that the scenes that take place after the bike trip feel rushed and the ending comes too soon.
I don’t men to imply that this is one of those books where I wish the ending would never come, because it isn’t, but only that, because it was rushed, it lost something. I think the novel would have been better served with an additional thirty or forty pages, because the suspense could have built further before the final climax. And as for a denouement, well, there really isn’t one. Shift is good enough for what it is. I was engaged enough to care a bit about what happened and to finish it, but I’m not going to try and get everyone I know to read it.
My final recommendation is this. Want a fairly obvious mystery novel, read Shift. Want to kill a couple hours? read shift. A fan of novels about road trips? Read shift. Want a great novel you’ll never forget? Go read Crime and Punishment, war and Peace, but not Shift.

two and a half stars.

Author’s web site. http://www.jennifer-bradbury.com/