Panic Room, Robert Goddard - Ciska's Book Chest

*Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher *

Author: Robert Goddard
Publisher: Bantam Press
Pages: 384
Format: DRC
ISBN-10: 0593076362
ISBN-13: 9780593076361
Publisher: eBook | Hardcover | Paperback | Audiobook

High on a Cornish cliff sits a vast uninhabited mansion. Uninhabited except for Blake, a young woman of dubious background, secretive and alone, currently acting as house sitter.
The house has a panic room. Cunningly concealed, steel lined, impregnable - and apparently closed from within. Even Blake doesn't know it's there. She's too busy being on the run from life, from a story she thinks she's escaped.
But her remote existence is going to be invaded when people come looking for the house's owner, missing rogue pharma entrepreneur, Jack Harkness. Suddenly the whole world wants to know where his money has gone. Soon people are going to come knocking on the door, people with motives and secrets of their own, who will be asking Blake the sort of questions she can't - or won't - want to answer.
And will the panic room ever give up its secrets?

Slow but steady was the first thing that came to my mind when I started writing this review. It is clear Goddard knows how to capture his audience and keep it close.
The story is very interesting. You have to know what that panic room is about and why everybody is after it. And that everybody is a bit of a problem with this book.
There are a lot of people involved. The (maybe or maybe not) rich owner of the house, Blake the house sitter, Don the estate agent, the family of the missing girl, a witch from town, some Italian guy and a few mobsters. All get their story line and it is a lot. It could have done with half the people involved and be just as interesting.
Then there is the switching narrative. It makes it interesting to see the story from different points of view but both the narratives are troubled making it hard to connect to either one of them. Moving between two stressed out people does help with setting the atmosphere but did not give me time to breath. In the end that might not even be so bad.