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Synopsis:

A space shuttle flight crew discovers that the Earth they’ve returned to is not the home they left behind in this emotional, mind-bending thriller from the creator of the hit Netflix series Manifest and the bestselling author of The Warehouse.

“If The Martian and The Twilight Zone had a baby, it would be Detour—a thriller that messes with your head as you scramble to piece together what’s really going on.”—Steve Netter, Best Thriller Books

Ryan Crane wasn’t looking for trouble—just a cup of coffee. But when this cop spots a gunman emerging from an unmarked van, he leaps into action and unknowingly saves John Ward, a billionaire with presidential aspirations, from an assassination attempt.

As thanks for Ryan’s quick thinking, Ward offers him the chance of a lifetime: to join a group of lucky civilians chosen to accompany three veteran astronauts on the first manned mission to Saturn’s moon Titan.

A devoted family man, Ryan is reluctant to leave on this two-year expedition, yet with the encouragement of his loving wife—and an exorbitant paycheck guaranteeing lifetime care for their disabled son—he crews up and ventures into a new frontier.

But as the ship is circling Titan, it is rocked by an unexplained series of explosions. The crew works together to get back on course, and they return to Earth as heroes.

When the fanfare dies down, Ryan and his fellow astronauts notice that things are different. Some changes are good, such as lavish upgrades to their homes, but others are more disconcerting. Before the group can connect, mysterious figures start tailing them, and their communications are scrambled.

Separated and suspicious, the crew must uncover the truth and decide how far they’re willing to go to return to their normal lives. Just when their space adventure seemingly ends, it shockingly begins.

Review:

Detour starts with the world falling apart and humanity trying to find a new place we can go that is inhabitable. The research says that Titan, the largest moon on Saturn, might be the best option. The first exploration is to drop a satellite and take pictures. The mission is manned with three well-seasoned and trained astronauts and three civilians, a researcher, the winner of a lottery to go into space, and a police officer who happened to be in the right place at the right time to save billionaire John Ward, the person also financing the trip. The trip takes two years, and when they return to Earth after the journey, they learn that things are different, radically different.

This is the first in a series of novels, and Detour is more about setting up the rest of the books than telling a complete story. The original idea was conceived by the creator of the television show Manifest and in the notes afterward, he says the original idea for Detour was a television series. The book reads like this; each chapter is an episode of a TV show, and it is all building to something bigger. A majority of the novel is the setup to them going to space, the training, the interpersonal conflicts, and the journey out to Titan and back. Only the last third is the story of the crew returning to Earth to see things are noticeably different. This definitely feels like a TV show, and if I were to watching it, I would probably enjoy it, maybe even recommend it to my friends, because it is an interesting concept and fun execution. The characters are varied enough to be engaging and keep my attention, and even though the science fiction is not so deep to not be appealing to a wide audience, the story does make sense. As a television series, it works pretty well, but as a novel, it is just okay. There is not a conclusion to the story, at least to a point where it will be okay if the second book does not get published. With novels, there has to be some satisfaction that the strings are tied together, even if loosely. What we get with Detour is a novel that is nothing but an introduction and a cliffhanger. This does not really work as well in books as it does on television. This is unfortunate because I would read the second book if I knew it was available. I like the story. I like the characters and their development, and I was engaged the entire way through. The writing is simple and appealing to a wide variety of readers, but there is something very unsatisfying about a novel that does not really have an end as much as a cliffhanger for the next book, especially in a series that has not been established as one that will continue. I would suggest reading it after a few books are published, especially if you are in a reading rut, because this is a fun and easy story to enjoy.

I received this as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.