Book Review: 7 Steps to Midnight

Continuing along my reading of the works of Richard Matheson, we come to the 1993 novel, 7 Steps to Midnight.  One of the things I've enjoyed most about reading his works is that he doesn't limit himself to one genre; I've come across crime novels (Fury on Sunday), Supernatural Thrillers (A Sitr of Echoes), Science Fiction (The Shrinking Man) and my personal favourite three, I Am Legend, What Dreams May Come, and Hell House.


This novel is a thriller, in a lot of ways close to the classic 1959 Hitchcock movie North by Northwest in that we follow an everyman through a terrifying chase across the globe as all sorts of creepy and threatening people seem to be hunting him down for different agendas.


The story's protagonist, Chris Barton, is a mathematician working for the United States government who comes home one day to find there is another man in his house claiming to also be Chris Barton, and believes that our main character is some sort of impostor.


The rest of the novel follows Chris as he evades police, government agents, and all sorts of shady folk who seem to want to kill him, capture him or help him.


In the end I enjoyed the book - it wasn't a game changer like my favourite three Matheson novels, but it was a solid thriller and I'd recommend it to anyone who is a fan of the genre.