Alignment: The Silent City

MYSTERY:  Five friends are playing cards at Mark’s spare apartment, waiting for Daniel to finish making khash, a special Armenian dish. Everything seems to be progressing as it usually does on their card nights, but Aram senses something is different. Upon waking the next morning, they discover they are the only five people left in the entire city. Aram has an encounter with a being, but it definitely is not human. Even the atmosphere has changed. There is no wind, just cold everywhere. They are all at a loss as to what could have happened during the night to take all the people away, leaving the city silent.

“Alignment” starts off as a distinctive story and gets more peculiar as it progresses. The five main characters are delightful in spite of their flaws. They each have their backstories that makes for some fun reading and helps the reader to be able to differentiate each of the characters. However, there are a few flaws in the story that keep it from flowing smoothly. Khash is spelled as xhash half the time and wrong tenses are used, so one is never quite sure what time things are happening. The story itself gets repetitive, so this reviewer wasn’t captivated during the entire story. The novel ends as a cliffhanger, so nothing is resolved, but a sequel is available. With quirky characters in an otherwise empty city, this is certainly a thought-provoking read.

Belinda Wilson