Three Hours Paperback – 1 October 2020

Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton is an intense, nail-biting thriller, one which I could not put down until I leafed through the last page.From the injured headmaster, to the teenage students frightened and angry at this onslaught on themselves, to the courageous teacher who is doing her best to protect the toddlers under her charge, to the sixteen-year-old Syrian refugee boy determined to protect his little brother from being terrorized in peaceful England, to the anguished parents waiting for some news of their trapped children with bated breath, and finally to the police psychologist who must identify the gunmen and figure out a way to stop them, the book presents the point of view of each and every player, barring the gunmen themselves. Their psyche, instead, is pieced together by sifting through the trail of evidence they leave behind. As a result, I had a complete picture of how the events unfolded.Each voice is remarkably distinct. Notably, the narrative is not linear. It jumps back and forth between the start of the siege and the middle of the siege. Sometimes, it goes even backward giving us a glimpse of an important event that set the things in motion. However, the transition between the timelines is seamless.The book is fast-paced and maintains the same momentum till the last page. Further, it is vividly descriptive.Despite being fast-paced, Three Hours poignantly lays bare the fractures in the society that have emerged because of the arrival of the Muslim refugees. Even during the siege, in absence of any concrete information, some of the anxious parents immediately suspect the Syrian brothers as the orchestrators.Moreover, Lupton kept me spellbound. To conclude, Three Hours is a brilliant thriller taut with suspense, brimming with action, and peopled with relatable characters.Many thanks to the publisher for providing a complimentary digital ARC via Netgalley.