When a Chicago coffee shop witnesses a horrific mass shooting, three hostages are inexplicably allowed to walk away while one victim survives in a coma. Two years on, all four parties are visited by an ethereal woman who presages a turn of fortune—though whether for good or ill is murky.
Julia Shraybman’s LUCKY NUMBER 6 starts off strong, with a horrifying turn from coffee shop meet-cute to terror attack. There’s just enough of a twist when a responding police officer sees something inexplicable after the carnage. From here, though—as the plot jumps two years and rejoins the survivors of the shooting—the text starts to bump into trouble. At the root of that trouble is a cast that’s just slightly too big: Charlie, Matt, Alex, Olivia, and a mysterious woman with black hair. This isn’t too big of a cast in absolute terms, but it leads the story into too much repetition. Every one of these characters, for instance, has a scene in which they finally acknowledge the supernatural tone of their experience—fine once, understandable twice, but frustrating when it happens several times for a reader who has already figured this out a hundred pages earlier. This dramatically slows the pace, since every story beat happens three or four times, removing much of the tension. It’s extremely clear from early on that these four strangers will ultimately meet up again, but LUCKY NUMBER 6 takes an exasperatingly long time to finally make that happen and get on with its proper plot.
These numbers further distract the text’s focus. The relationship between Charlie and Olivia is far stronger, more interesting, and ultimately more important than that between Matt and Alex. In fact, Matt could be cut entirely without losing much (other than a rushed, flat romance). By the end of the text, even the primary antagonist feels vaguely defined and unsatisfying. A tighter focus would eliminate some of the repetition, but it would also allow the novel to more deeply develop the characters that matter—thus giving the reader more emotional investment. It would also allow LUCKY NUMBER 6 to further develop its prose style: each of the protagonists occasionally serves as a narrator, but the narrative voices aren’t particularly distinct. Fewer different protagonists would at least make this less obvious, as well as give the text greater opportunities to show character through differences in style.
Though LUCKY NUMBER 6 has enough to satisfy some fans of the supernatural and mysterious, it doesn’t have what it needs to really grab a reader—nor stay with them once the last page has been turned.
Awkward plotting and some rushed character work prevent Julia Shraybman’s LUCKY NUMBER 6 from thrilling or chilling as it needs to, but it may scratch an itch for those seeking a quick, by-the-numbers supernatural mystery.
~Dan Accardi for IndieReader