Book Review - The Arrival by Robin Brookes

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Title: The Arrival

Author: Robin Brookes

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Vintage Digital

Publication Date: 14th May 2026

Rating: 5 Stars

Leo and Viv's weekend starts like any other: a takeaway, a movie and an early night. But when Leo wakes up, he's not in their London flat. He’s naked and alone in an unfamiliar bed, in an anonymous hotel, on the other side of the world.

Viv wakes up to a phone ringing. It's Leo and he claims to be in Australia, despite the impossibility of it. An emergency passport is arranged, a return flight to London booked. But before Leo can make it out, there's a flicker in the corner of his vision, and he wakes up in another bed, in another hotel room, in another country.

Disoriented, Leo soon discovers he's not alone. Someone with access to groundbreaking technology, and an axe to grind, is beaming a group of people around the globe – stalking them one by one, committing perfect, untraceable murders. As Leo fights to survive, Viv unearths dark secrets from her husband’s past. And the more she learns about Leo, the less she seems to know about him . . .

The Arrival is an unmissable world-hopping high-stakes thriller for fans of Dark Matter and Wrong Place, Wrong Time.

I love technology and I love travel, so this is a book that definitely caught my attention.  

I was fascinated by the thought that there could be tech out there that can transport a person from country to another, in the blink of an eye pretty much.  It's tech that I would definitely love to use should it ever become a reality. 

However unfortunately for Leo, he has no idea that this exists initially, much less why he keeps being moved around the world. He goes to bed in London and wakes a few hours later in a Melbourne hotel room, and that is just the first of a fair few places this happens.  And at least one of the locations is one that I have definitely never seen in a book before, as it's a country that has very strict border controls and tourism restrictions. 

There are multiple attempts on Leo's life even before he comes across some other people that are experiencing the same thing, and then the murders start.  The person behind this, is in fact committing the most perfect of murders, it's quite impressive actually. 

And weirdly I didn't hate the killer, we get sections from their point of view, and ok they may be a psychopath, but I felt a bit sorry for them too.  Although the very specific reasons for targeting these people are a bit harder to even vaguely try to justify. 

While Leo is trying to stay alive, his wife Viv starts digging into his life and learning a lot of hidden secrets.  

I was gripped by this and once I understood this wasn't quite my normal sort of thriller and leaned into the more sci-fi elements of it, I was hooked. I needed to keep reading and found the pages were turning faster than I expected. 

This was my first book from this author and I'll certainly be interested to see what they write next. 

Thank you to Vintage Digital and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.