It’s 2050, and the Big 7 companies of the U. S. are preparing to bid on this year’s cream-of-the-crop twenty-year-olds via the country’s annual auction. With multimillion-dollar price tags on their heads, candidates anxiously await their fate knowing that only 500 of them will make the cut. Parents begin grooming their children early for them to have the best chance at becoming a Series “A” candidate for The Auction—there is no shortage of tutors, counselors, and coaches to shape their sons and daughters into potential financial successes. After all, parents have as much at stake as their offspring since the proceeds of the auction goes to them. In exchange for the company helping candidates with their careers, they get 25% of their income over the course of the candidate’s lifetime. In the minds of the Big 7, everyone wins.

THE AUCTION is an edge-of-your-seat thriller that checks off all the requisite boxes when it comes to character development, high-stakes action, and multitudinous problems piled one on top of another. Plot twists, dire circumstances, and plenty of suspense run throughout the narrative. Interesting rivalries among the characters also give rise to the action and keep the storyline moving at a swift pace. The predicaments the characters are put in are difficult and often dangerous. The ending is satisfying, although not all the loose ends are tied up, so perhaps author Tom Galvin has a sequel in mind.

Without a scorecard, it is challenging to keep track of the 50+ characters in this book, with more than ten of them worthy of main character status. And since each character has his own story, the number of subplots is also extensive. While this may turn away some readers, it may also be the most impressive aspect of the book. Galvin manages to create scores of characters, each with their own distinct personality, motivational resolve, and back story, and although the characters’ journeys overlap, each is portrayed in a fresh and unique way. Because the narrative is told in omniscient point of view, the author must carefully choose the right character to focus on at any given time, and he does so skillfully.

An impressive debut novel, THE AUCTION by Tom Galvin has enough plot twists, conflict, corruption, greed, deceit, blackmail, guilt, threats, death, violence, theft, disloyalty, bribes, rivalry, and lies to keep readers glued to the book right up to the end.

~Florence Osmund for IndieReader