The Ridealong
Michaelbrent Collings
April 27, 2015
Reviewed by Tim Potter
The latest novel from Michaelbrent Collings, The Ridealong, is a action-thriller with a few horror elements. The story is told in the first-person by Melissa, the daughter of Officer Latham, who takes her on a ridealong on his first day back on patrol after a tragic shootout. The story is thin on character development, focusing instead on on high action that forces the main characters into one perilous situation after another. The suspense keeps up throughout the book and the pages seem to turn themselves but the story lacks any real relatability up through the letdown of a twist ending.
The plot plays out like an action movie. Returning to duty after being wounded in a gun battle, Officer Latham, who has unwisely brought his daughter for a ridealong, is drawn into a mysterious cat-and-mouse game with an unknown killer. The voice of the narrator seems to shift between that of an average 17 year old girl and a tough action hero. For the most part it works, and the fluctuating voice is actually in line with the ultimate reveal of the story.
The prose is smooth and reads quickly, and the plot keeps moving forward with a good pace. It impressive to keep the book moving for the duration, especially when the characters aren’t relatable and don’t elicit any emotional connection. Other than Officer Latham and his daughter the other characters are silhouettes, just shadows of real people with little to no personality.
The story is a chase for the truth. The truth of who the faceless killer “Jack” is and the truth of what really happened in the shootout that left Latham wounded are investigated through a sequence of increasingly deadly action set-pieces. The book has as many missed bullets fired at the heroes as any Die Hard film and it gets a bit tiresome. There is no revelations until they all come, almost at the same time, at the climax of the book and they are a mix of predictable and preposterous. Too much of the book’s success relies on how well the reader likes the ending.
The Ridealong is a mixed-bag, offering smart pacing and good readability with flat characters and some twists that test credulity. If you’re looking for a fast-paced action-thriller and don’t mind a story that only covers the traditional bases, this book will work for you.
