Desert Places by Blake Crouch

 

Andrew Thomas has a successful life.  He's an author of thrillers and each has been more successful than the previous ones.  He lives in his native state of North Carolina on a lake and within an hour of his mother.  He's just about to release his latest book and start the round of book tours and signings when he gets a message.

The message tells him that a missing woman who is all over the news has been murdered and buried on his land.  If he doesn't do exactly as he is told, the police will be notified and the killer has planted Thomas' DNA on the body.  Andrew checks and sure enough, the body is where he was told.

He agrees to do as told and is soon knocked out and transported out to the mountains and deserts of Wyoming.  There he meets his captor and is shocked to see that it is his twin brother, Orson.  He hasn't seen Orson in decades, ever since the day Orson left their college dorm room and disappeared.   Now he is Orson's prisoner and Orson soon reveals what he has been doing all these years.  He is a serial killer and determined to bring Andrew into his life and make him do the same killings he has been pursuing for years.  Andrew is determined not to cave to Orson's demands, but little by little he is broken until he is doing things he never imagined.  Andrew realizes that the only way to free himself from Orson is to kill him and the hunt is on between the two.  Who will win?

Blake Crouch is an American author who writes in the thriller genre and has had both his Wayward Pines and his Dark Matter series adapted to tv series.  I love that he is a North Carolina author and that he writes about the places I recognize in my state.  This book will be too graphic for some readers and if sensitive this is probably not the book for you.  But it is an intriguing take and very suspenseful as the brothers are locked in a battle for supremacy.  This book is recommended for thriller readers.