Simon Toyne - The Key

I’ll start with a fairly obvious confession. I have not been giving this blog the time I should have – case in point I actually finished reading this, and several reviews to follow, back in July and August last year. This means I’m relying heavily on my notes to paint the picture of this book and the next one.

The Key is the follow up to The Sanctum, a book that turned out to be really enjoyable despite appearing to shit all over itself in the first few pages. The Key does not make the same mistakes. It’s a thoroughly engaging read from start to finish as are most second books in a three-part series. But more on that later.

The one thing I can’t quite get my head around is the fact that everything is so well logically constructed to make sense in our own world with the exception of the sacrament itself. That’s all I’ll say about that – after all, it’s a book I am recommending!

So with the praise out of the way, I’m only left with more nit-picking through the 437 page offering. I’ll start with the biggest one – mathematical ages of characters. Kathryn is Gabriel’s mother but if I’ve done the maths correctly, this would mean that she was 16 when she gave birth to him. The book makes this really easy to work out as both their ages are depicted on page 49. I suppose it’s feasible but it just doesn’t add up with the character traits – and it’s one of those things that casual observers would comment on – ‘oh, you must have been young when you had him,’ or ‘you look far too young to have a 32 year old son.’ No one says anything though – again, nothing really wrong with it, I just thought it was an odd choice.

Another thing I found surprising was the Vactican City’s approach to Information Security. On page 14 one character’s narrative states that he only has one attempt at entering a password without locking himself out of his entire computer. I get that it’s super-sensitive information but everyone fucks up typing every now and then. I would have thought that sense would have prevailed here and he would have had at least two attempts at entering the password.

The last one worth mentioning is on page 6 where Ghost is interrogating someone called the fat man. The fat man seems to totally forget that he has programmed his Sat-Nav with his home address seconds after being defiant in the face of having his family threatened. I’m all for characterisation but I just don’t get how anyone could be that stupid.

These are three very small observations that are more my personal preference that actual problems. The Key is a solid, enjoyable story with strong characters. Enough said.

The Key by Simon Toyne was published by HarperCollinsPublishers in 2012. RRP £7.99 (Paperback)