I’ve just finished the very hip book Ghost Radio by Leopoldo Gout. It’s a quirky and challenging novel with a seemingly well-paced story, but hiding a subtle and slow build. By the time I realised what was happening, it was almost done, even though all the clues are sown throughout the story. It’s told in episodic fashion, with snippets of radio interviews, flashbacks and with shifting points of view (at times I did find it tricky to know who the pronouns meant immediately). Each chapter begins with a haunting illustration that hints at what is to come.

There seems to be a little bit of Internet hype about the book (it has been out for a while now), and Gout works with James Patterson developing some of that author’s children’s concepts for for animation so he is probably keyed into that promotion machine (Patterson is quoted in support of the book on the back of my copy). Anyway, I enjoyed it enough to hope that Gout isn’t too busy with media production to be able to put out another novel soon.

ps – just surfing and discovered that Gout has posted a deleted chapter from the novel on his Ghost Radio blog. That’ll give you a taste of the novel, plus something you can’t read in the print version.