Snapshot by Brandon Sanderson

Snapshot is the first book that I’ve read by Brandon Sanderson and if the rest of his stories are anything like this, Snapshot will not be my last.

The premise of this novella is quite interesting and it’s what drew me in when I read the blurb. In an alternate world,science has evolved to a point where there is a way to can recreate any particular past day. This recreation is 100% accurate, in that situations, places, people, events, everything will be exactly how it happened that day.

All that is possible due to the high-tech built and installed under the city, technology which can be used by the police to solve hard to crack cases.

To solve the crimes, in the city of Clipperton a special department has been created, with the task force being able to enter the fake world and experience the day first hand, because in this place, a committed crime can be watched in “real life” as it happens.

The detectives are sent into this replica world to monitor what transpired, witness the crime being committed, and upon returning to the real world, they would be able to testify as to the exact order of the events.

This is the Snapshot. It is a place that can not influence the real world, however the officers sent there can still be hurt or even killed. If you die in the Snapshot, you die in real life.

The two policemen assigned to Snapshot are Anthony Davis and his partner Chaz. They are not the most effective cops ever to grace the Precinct, so they have been given the seemingly easy and risk-free job of witnessing the past.

Their current task: to witness a particular shooting that happened 10 days before the current day. The murder weapon is missing and they have to investigate that particular day and find the weapon’s location.

So they are sent back to shortly before the shooting happened so they have time to be at the scene right from the start.

Except things don’t quite go as planned…

As they work on their investigation within the Snapshot, they discover something much bigger than either of them could imagine. What’s more, as we read the book we realize that the two detectives have their own skeletons hidden in their closets and some of their motives might not be as clear as they seem.

While the story is quite short, I had not one, but two major surprises. Whenever I thought I figured it all out, there came something that made me rethink what I thought I knew.

And when the last major surprise was revealed, I had to put the book down for a bit just to take it all in…because wow!

I’ve read the book some 10 days ago and I still can’t stop thinking about it. It’s just mind-boggling. I don’t want to spoil it, so I won’t say more, but do yourself a favor and read it. You won’t regret it.