The Hollow City by Dan Wells

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 out of 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Dan Wells won instant acclaim for his three-novel debut about the adventures of John Wayne Cleaver, a heroic young man who is a potential serial killer. All who read the trilogy were struck by the distinctive and believable voice Wells created for John.

Now he returns with another innovative thriller told in a very different, equally unique voice. A voice that comes to us from the  realm of madness.

Michael Shipman is paranoid schizophrenic; he suffers from hallucinations, delusions, and complex fantasies of persecution and horror. That’s bad enough. But what can he do if some of the monsters he sees turn out to be real?

Who can you trust if you can't even trust yourself? The Hollow City is a mesmerizing journey into madness, where the greatest enemy of all is your own mind.

I went into The Hollow City expecting to like it so I had high expectations. They were met when I read this. I have no complaints to talk about. I think that The Hollow City was very well executed with each reaction, clue, and event flowing into the next. The pacing of the book was excellent. It was fast paced but still managed to be coherent.

As far as characters go, I liked John Wayne Cleaver [I Am Not A Serial Killer] more than Michael even though he wasn't any less interesting. I think that I enjoyed the darker, creepier side to John that Michael didn't have. Michael had a depth to him that I appreciated and it was interesting to experience everything in the book from his point of view. He was an unreliable point of view. It was difficult to tell fact from fiction which I found to be exciting and frustrating at the same time. 

I loved the twist in the book even though I guessed part of it. It was an interesting way to take the story. I think that the paranormal elements in this book were more fleshed out and better done than in some of the author's previous work. I honestly don't think that Dan Wells can write something that I won't enjoy. I have liked all of the books that I have read by him.