Black Mad Wheel

What a premise. Group of musicians goes into the African desert to search for a mysterious sound that the US military thinks is disarming weapons. Cool, right? Pulled me right in.

Other than that, the book didn't have much going for it. I felt like Dan Brown wrote this and someone on the sidelines was cheering him on, yelling “More vomit! More vomit!” Maybe that person was Josh Malerman, maybe not.

The story itself didn't make a lot of sense. If you read some of the other reviews here, you'll get a sense of what I mean. Having said that, and I won't spoil anything, the premise itself wrote Malerman into a corner. Which do you think would be the worse payoff: revealing the source, or NOT revealing the source? I believe that either scenario would be equally disappointing.