Dark Matter

I love Thursday nights.

They have a feel to them that s outside of time.

It s our tradition, just the three of us family night.

My son, Charlie, is sitting at the table, drawing on a sketch pad. He s almost fifteen. The kid grew two inches over the summer, and he s as tall as I am now.

I turn away from the onion I m julienning, ask, Can I see?

He holds up the pad, shows me a mountain range that looks like something on another planet.

I say, Love that. Just for fun?
 
Class project. Due tomorrow.

Then get back to it, Mr. Last Minute.

Standing happy and slightly drunk in my kitchen, I m unaware that tonight is the end of all of this. The end of everything I know, everything I love.

No one tells you it s all about to change, to be taken away. There s no proximity alert, no indication that you re standing on the precipice. And maybe that s what makes tragedy so tragic. Not just what happens, but how it happens: a sucker punch that comes at you out of nowhere, when you re least expecting. No time to flinch or brace.

The track lights shine on the surface of my wine, and the onion is beginning to sting my eyes. Thelonius Monk spins on the old turntable in the den. There's a richness to the analog recording I can never get enough of, especially the crackle of static between tracks. The den is filled with stacks and stacks of rare vinyl that I keep telling myself I'll get around to organizing one of these days.

My wife, Daniela, sits on the kitchen island, swirling her almost­ empty wineglass in one hand and holding her phone in the other. She feels my stare and grins without looking up from the screen.

I know, she says. I m violating the cardinal rule of family night.

What s so important? I ask.

She levels her dark, Spanish eyes on mine. Nothing.

I walk over to her, take the phone gently out of her hand, and set it on the countertop.

You could start the pasta, I say.

I prefer to watch you cook.

Yeah?

Blake Crouch

The most helter-skelter, race-to-the-finish-line thriller you ll read all year, with a clever, mind-boggling final twist. The Guardian

Relatable and unnerving . . . makes its characters and readers wonder what life would have been like had they made different decisions. USA Today

A portal into other dimensions of reality . . . you ll gulp it down in one afternoon, or more likely one night. The New York Times Book Review

A mind-blowing sci-fi/suspense/love-story mash-up. Entertainment Weekly

A fast, tasty read with a killer twist. It s a whole bag of barbecue chips . . . just sitting there waiting for you to devour in one long rush. NPR

A dazzling book . . . [with] a mind-bending premise, a head-spinning plot that s dialogue-driven and adrenaline-fueled, and a gut-wrenching climax that gave me goose bumps. Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Draws on questions and anxieties we all wrestle with in the dark hours . . . Crouch has invested [sci-fi motifs] with scientific plausibility, and more unusually, with emotional depth." The Wall Street Journal

[A] mind-blowing speculative-science thriller that throws in an old-fashioned love story for good measure. Fort Worth Star-Telegram

A pacy, action-driven SF thriller . . . terse prose, strong characterisation and clever twists make for a quick, smart, engrossing read. Financial Times

A high-tension thriller . . . always engaging and frequently moving. A strong piece of summertime get-away reading, perfect for those times when the mind wanders to contemplate an alternate reality of endless vacation. San Francisco Chronicle

A mind-bending odyssey of parallel worlds and causality [that] unfolds with all the suspense and strength of a more straightforward thriller, building up to a deliciously surreal climax memorable and well-rounded characters add a big, beating heart to the