A Week's Worth by Thyme Lewis
“I wanna know why whenever you come around, people start dying.”
So, too, do readers, trying to navigate through the complex machinations that make up the plot of Thyme Lewis’ intriguing A Week’s Worth (Palmetto Publishing). There’s something about the overriding storyline that begs the question: what the heck is going on here?
What we know is this: our protagonist MacGuffin, better known as Mac, works for FEMA helping those caught in the throes of natural disasters reestablish their lives. We don’t see Mac in action working his FEMA gig so much as understand that he has skills in line with some of the world’s best special operatives.
As the book opens, he learns from his sister that his mother has suffered a heart attack and FEMA has granted him one week to go to her. He makes the decision to take her on a “vacation” to their seldom-used condo in a beach community near Los Angeles.
Mac’s motives seem as pure and simple as helping his mother in need — his father is gone, and his siblings don’t seem to be very present to assist. Mac himself is not in frequent touch, yet the drive to LA and their subsequent stay together comprise much of the narrative and gets deep inside their mother-son relationship.
But things can’t be just pure and simple. And they are not.
A Trail of Suspicion
Local investigators get involved when two bodies, via separate incidents, show up in their condo building. It doesn’t help that Mac is caught on the building’s surveillance system cameras in the building garage and then climbing the roof at odd hours. He also seems to have run-ins with tenants and management. In digging up his past, they also find a warrant was issued for him for assault and battery, and he failed to appear in court.
None of this seems to phase Mac, as he receives various calls and texts relating to some kind of past activity for which readers need to figure out. Mac, too, apparently has some figuring out to do himself.
Lewis writes touchingly and convincingly about a son trying to understand and come to terms with his mother, from big picture issues like her health and overall family dynamics to the mundane day to day of drinking smoothies and getting exercise.
Yet the author interjects plenty of suspense and intrigue. Just how much does Mac know about the deaths in his building? What about his past life helps shape the narrative? What are the roles of the many ancillary characters — some acquaintances from the condo who remember him from earlier visits and others with whom his dealings aren’t clear? Are drugs involved? What might be Mac hiding?
Thyme Lewis has created an intriguing lead character who shows a real human and emotional side and also carries some baggage that readers wait for him to unload. For a touching and suspenseful thriller that keeps readers begging for clues that eventually pay off, A Week’s Worth is certainly worth your consideration.
Thyme Lewis, an American actor, author, humanitarian and ex-Hollywood stuntman, spent his formative years in Big Sur, CA, with his mother and two siblings. To this day, he is best recognized for his unforgettable portrayal of Jonah Carver on NBC’s Days of Our Lives. He continued with starring roles in Sunset Beach and Young and the Restless before producing feature films.
A fifth generation Californian, Thyme discovered a passion for acting while attending college and writing working with FEMA. It was through these experiences he began writing the MacGuffin series. Now a mostly full-time writer, Thyme resides in Carmel by-the-Sea. He returns to television this spring landing his first co-star on Bosch Legacy — a gritty crime drama on Amazon Original. He is of Norwegian, Scottish, Irish, Haitian and Choctaw Indian descent.
Visit https://thymelewisbooks.com.
