Nightrise(The Gatekeepers Book #3) Book Review 

by Anthony Horowitz I’d give this one 3.5 stars out of 5. Anthony Horowitz is one of my favorite modern writers. His greatest strength, or, what resonates with me most, is when he is writing something slightly creepy, mysterious, and ominous. He is VERY good at that, and I can’t get enough of it. That is what originally drew me into this series. In book one, Raven’s Gate, he really created a haunting ambiance to surround his wonderfully creepy-cult-characters. Unfortunately, since the first book, we only get bits and pieces of that. But, when we do get them, they are really good pits and pieces. Don’t get me wrong. This is a very good series. Each book introduces us to another one (or more than one) of “The Five.” “The Five” consists of five teenagers that are destined to protect the world against The Old Ones – a race of creatures that are the stuff of ancient myth, and legends. Book 3, Nightrise, follows two of “The Five,” in Jamie and Scott Tyler, twin brothers that share a special connection with each other, and the power to strongly influence others. Book three’s story begins with the brothers performing on stage during a magic act. As the stars of the show, they perform fantastic tricks. For example, one brother seeing something on one side of the room, and the brother other telling him and the crowd what he sees without seeing that something himself. It is this moment when we start to understand how Jamie and Scott are connected, but only on the surface. They can, in fact, do much more. This won’t be revealed until later in the story. It is, at this same performance, that several men have come to validate the claim they’ve heard – that Jamie and Scott Tyler have special, unexplained powers. We learn, during one of the audience ticks – one brother seeing a business card in the audience, and the other brother saying what he sees from the stage – that these men represent the Nightrise corporation. Later we learn that its a company that is aware of The Old Ones, and collects children with special gifts. Once convinced of their power, these two men meet up with Jamie and Scott’s guardian, the man who produces the show. We also learn that he called Nightrise, and that he’s willing to sell his boys for around a few hundred thousand dollars. After the inciting incicent, we follow the boys as they are captured, then get away, and then separated. We learn more about them, and their destiny as they do. For me, this was the book that started to try to link all the separate storilines together. There not only is some mention of Matt and Pedro (two other boys of “The Five,”) but there is a whole sequence of dreamworld battle that I found to be quite a bit confusing at first. This might be partially because I was listening to the audiobook version of the book, but the story seemed just kind of jump storilines. Once I realized what was going on, it was helpful to put everything in context across multiple books, multiple characters, and multiple universes(?) While I’ve shared some of the early plot points, I won’t reveal any of the key plot points to this book, or some of the critical information that connects the books across the series. I will say specific to book 3 that there is definately a vein similar to Stephen King’s, The Dead Zone – at least in a reverse, round about sort of way. For more on that, you’ll have to pick up the books 🙂 All in all, this is a good book and a very good series. If you like action, suspense, with an occasional bit of creepy ambiance, this book would be worth checking out. If you’ve read Nightrise, let me know what you think in the comments!