Review – Vanish

Three strangers, a mechanic, an attorney, and a model, share one thing in common. Each encountered the same mysterious storm. Each felt strange and confused. Each awoke the following morning alone. Three strangers’ lives would soon intersect in their search for survivors.

It began with an eerie feeling, followed by the mysterious storm, and a sense of being watched by elusive shadows glimpsed from the corner of their eyes. It became terrifying when Mitch Kent, Connor Hayden, and Helen Krause learn their family, friends, neighbors and loved ones had vanished.

Mechanic Mitch Kent answered the garage phone and heard his father’s voice ask if they could get together. He wanted to “make things right.” Although they hadn’t spoken in five years Mitch agreed to meet. Emotions in turmoil, Mitch straddled his vintage Harley and sped into the sudden storm’s darkness. The forecast had been for a clear night-then everything went black.

Attorney Connor Hayden thought clients, Annie and Jim, would make him rich if they would only agree to bring a malpractice suit against their doctor and friend for the loss of their baby. He had to convince them it wasn’t personal, just business. Besides the doctor carried malpractice insurance. But the storm changed everything.

Aging model, Helen Krause’s agent said she needed to work behind the camera now, and not in front of it. Helen’s face didn’t betray her devastation. Her life was her modeling career, even when the price had been a relationship with her son Kyle. When she left the agents office she determined to find Kyle. Maybe it wasn’t too late for them. But the mystifying storm changed her priorities.

Add shadowy observers, a search for survivors, vivid hallucinations, a mute homeless boy, and a cross-country journey from Chicago to Washington D.C., and this debut author presents a chilling thriller, in the vein of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Ted Dekker. The complex plot, story line, well-developed characters, and shocking ending, make Vanish a debut thriller not to miss.

Tom Pawlik’s suspense thriller won first place in Operation: First Novel 2006, sponsored by Jerry B. Jenkins Writers Guild and Tyndale House Publishers. The contest winner won a publishing commitment from Tyndale.