Following a psychotic break, Eli Carver finds himself on the run, behind the wheel of a car that’s not his own, and in the company of a terrified woman he doesn’t know. As layers of ugly truth are peeled back and dark secrets are revealed, the duo find themselves in a struggle for survival when they unravel a mystery that pits them against the most dangerous forces in their lives.A contemporary … contemporary southern gothic thriller with frightening supernatural overtones, Alan Baxter’s Manifest Recall explores the tragic life of a hitman who finds himself on the wrong side of his criminal syndicate. Baxter’s adrenaline-fueled approach to storytelling draws readers into Eli Carver’s downward spiral of psychosis and through the darkest realms of lost memories, human guilt and the insurmountable quest for personal redemption.
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First things first, this book has an absolutely delicious opening line.
“I bought a used car off a woman as thin as her hand-rolled cigarettes,” it begins. What a line. That’s the kind of line that could launch a Leonard Cohen song.
What it launches here is a mean, dark, dirty tale of a man on the run, with a partially-dressed woman secured with cable ties in the car next to her – and he has no idea where he is, who she is or what’s going on.
The man is Eli Carver, a hitman who has made all the bad choices you could make, and it emerges that the woman next to him is the daughter of his boss. His mind is a mess, from the trauma that led him here – and from the ghosts of the dead that show up to taunt him along the way.
It’s a fast-moving story where the supernatural isn’t overplayed – and where revenge is the guiding light. This is a world of violent people doing violent things, and where you don’t cheer on the best people, but the least worst.
It hits you hard then leaves you bitter, like a hard hangover after a bottle of tequila, but you enjoy it just the same. Take a shot.
Having devoured Mr. Baxter’s “The Gulp”- a collection of short stories based around a fictional village of the same name – I ordered Manifest recall and three other books by Alan, on the recommendations I received from Mother Horror. Manifest Recall is the first of those, and I’d saved it for a weekend I knew was coming where I could just read to my heart’s content. So, I was already in a good mood when I started it.
It might well have been the fact that I was in the backseat of a moving car, traveling at 130 km/per hour on my way to visit my in-laws, but I developed tunnel vision, was oblivious to anything and everyone outside of the book, and upon arriving at my destination 2 and a half hours later, with just the Author page left to read, I was basically in a daze. And a happy, thriller-filled one at that.
Manifest Recall takes some cool writing tropes, such as an unreliable narrator, non-sequential storytelling, and paranormal elements, and blends them into not only a coherent whole but also a break-necked pace one. Baxter’s at the top of his game here, I loved the deep pov, we are as confused as the character when days pass by unnoticed, we are as clueless as he, piecing together the puzzle that is his past. There are touches here of the film Memento, story-wise, and all of the action scenes are well done, the only comparison I can think of, offhand, would be some of Lee Child’s work. There are detail nerd’s (like me) moments, the information about rear lights on cars, that make this seem natural, believable, more real than the reality we are escaping from, that are the cherry on the cake. The female lead role, Carly, is well delivered, the nuance given to her, is, I believe, observational profiling, her past well presented. Even side characters like the MC’s wife (no spoilers here) are fleshed out and bustle with their own individual personalities when given their moment in the spotlight. I loved her lines to Vernon, Baxter can write strong female characters, and the meeting of the two felt real. Perhaps the incident with the son was a step too far – not from a sympathy point, but rather, I think we were already on board with the MC’s motivations by that point – but it firmed up the reaction and subsequent chain of events and made the brutality that was to come later, seem something to which we were invested. I say we, I can’t think that anyone would not have been invested by that point.
There are elements here that were left very, very unexplained. I won’t go into spoilers, but there are lines here which I even noted as I came across them, that changed a phenomenon in the book into an actual event – something I had believed a psychosis, into an actual, undeniable manifestation. The explanation of which I will be hounding Mr. Baxter for, in the sequel (s?) to the novel. But my enjoyment of the book made me more than happy to wait – make no mistake, this is just pure intellectual entertainment, an brilliantly presented, roller-coaster ride of a novel. Boy, can Mr. Baxter write, and the flow here is unstoppable. I’m already considering the sequel, “Recall night”, for my ride back home, it would give synchronicity to the entire, wonderful, fully invested tunnel vision experience that is the magnificent Manifest Recall and my weekend away from it all at my in-laws.
Alan, you continue to impress me.
5 out of 5
Over the last few years, Alan Baxter has not only released some amazing works (Devouring Dark/Served Cold/The Roo), but he’s also become an author that I get truly excited for their new releases. When Baxter announced Recall Night, Book Two in the Eli Carver world, I realized I had Manifest Recall sitting on my Kindle, unread.
How shameful.
What I liked: Eli Carver is a thug. Paid to keep business moving for underground boss Vernon. When he comes back from a blackout episode, he is in a car, no memory of recent events and beside him, tied up is a woman of great importance to Vernon.
Baxter opens this thing up at 100mph and from there keeps finding extra gears to throw more and more action at us, while we slowly learn of what caused the blackout.
Carver is a great character. Baxter makes us root for him long before all the details come out and as his journey is laid out, Carver has a great arc for the redemption of past events.
His companion Carly was another well-crafted character. Smart and strong, her evolution paired well with Carver’s.
What I didn’t like: I personally found the paranormal aspect almost unwarranted. Carver sees the ghosts of prior victims and can hear them speak. Except for a small, philosophical moment near the end, they play such a minor role as to be unnecessary. I was hoping Carver would tell Carly, but that never came about.
Why you should buy this: Baxter has crafted a fast-paced, brutal thriller. Carver kills at will and this makes for a fun, unpredictable novella. Think Jason Statham’s ‘Crank’ with ghosts. I’ve got book two preordered and will dive in on release day. You should as well.