A rather extraordinary story, but gripping nonetheless.
Terry Hayes is a screenwriter-turned-author whose debut novel – I Am Pilgrim – was a runaway bestseller. But that was nine years ago, and it’s taken that long for Hayes to write a second novel: The Year of the Locust, which was published at the end of 2023.
Like Pilgrim it’s an action thriller, set on the international stage and involving all the usual rogue governments, terrorist groups and intelligence services. The protagonist is a CIA operative known as Kane, who works in what are described as Denied Access Areas – the most dangerous countries and regions in the world.
The novel is written in four parts. Parts One and Two cover the CIA’s efforts to unmask the leader of a new Islamic terror group known as the Army of the Pure, which operates from the Iranian borderlands. The CIA has discovered that a major terrorist attack on the USA is being planned, so Kane is sent into Iran to rendezvous with a courier and find out more, and maybe to extract the man and his family. It’s typical of the action thriller genre, loaded with excitement and tension. But while Parts Three and Four keep the story moving forward, they also shift the reader into an entirely new realm, which embraces time travel and glimpses of the future. The Army of the Pure remain in Kane’s sights throughout the novel and the story continues to be tense and exciting, but the plot becomes much too complicated to try to describe here! Enough to say that the main story does stay on track – sort of – and, at the end, the reader is taken to a very satisfactory conclusion.
Our verdict
If you enjoy reading action thrillers there’s absolutely no reason to think you won’t enjoy The Year of the Locust, even if it is a slightly strange creature. Something we discovered when we were reading it was that Terry Hayes’s screenwriting successes include two Mad Max movies. And if you bear this in mind, you might not be as taken aback as we were when the plot veered off the expected track about two thirds through the novel.
Some of us in Oundle Crime had read I Am Pilgrim all those years ago and enjoyed it, so our expectations were high for this. And, after all, reviews for The Year of the Locust had described it as a “superior geopolitical thriller” and “epic and immersive, new and unexpected”. But the book really split opinion in our group. None of us enjoyed or could make sense of the time travel section, and we thought it diminished the novel. Those who ploughed through to the end did their best to ignore it, and said they eventually quite enjoyed the book. But several people didn’t bother to finish reading it. We all agreed it was a bonkers concept and it generated a lot of discussion at our meeting. For us, the best way to summarise The Year of the Locust is to say it’s a Marmite novel that you’ll either love, or hate. 3+ Stars.
Oundle Crime thanks publishers, Simon & Schuster, and The Reading Agency for the opportunity to read The Year of the Locust. We are voluntarily giving an honest review.
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