Tick Tock is not a traditional mystery but very enjoyable.The premise is about a bio virus attack and with Covid it is totally relatable.The characters are very likeable and you cheer them along. I throughly enjoyed this book and would recommend this book .I have also put a comment on the UK Crime Book Club and getting likes for the book.

3.5 rounded up.

Set in the near future after COVID this book is about another mysterious illness that ends up being much more serious than initially thought. People’s ears are starting to ‘click’, initially thought to be tinnitus the clicks are audible to others. The clicks speed up. It turns out to be contagious. And then things a whole lot worse.

Kit Chaplin, English teacher at a London college, wonders what is going on. His daughter Rose’s best friend Harriet has started to click and a few others at the school are clicking too. His girlfriend, Lilly Slater, an eminent vaccinologist doesn’t know what’s happening either but she works her contacts in the field and it is looking like a form of meningococcal disease that no one has seen before. As people start dying it becomes apparent that none of the currently available antibiotics are working.

The plot soon gets intriguing as Lilly learns that one of the disease hotspots is Porton Down - the Defence, Science and Technology Laboratory where ‘secret squirrel’ research has been conducted. The author cleverly links this to real life events like the Skripal poisoning and the ricin attack on a Tokyo train.

As the epidemic spreads and Kit and Rose both start clicking it becomes a race against time to devise a vaccine or a cure. The intelligence community, Lilly’s dead father’s former colleague and international intrigue all feature in this “ripped from the headlines” story. And why does Lilly seem to be immune?

This was an entertaining book with relatable characters and a solid plot that might be too close to home for some readers. But I thought it was a well put together story. Who knows - it might be our next pandemic. Who really knows what goes in some of the various government secret research facilities around the world? Let’s hope this one stays in the realm of fiction. Many thanks to Netgalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishing for the much appreciated arc which I reviewed voluntarily and honestly.

This is another page turner from Simon Mayo. A clever book - with the fear of Covid still not over we are confronted with the threat of another pandemic that works in a weird way, manifesting as ear clicks that can be heard outside of the ear. Good strong characters and a very good plot makes for an excellent read. I loved it. And when I went out in my car just now I noticed the tick tock of the indicators when I put them on. That was a bit freaky as it's usually one of those background noises you just don't notice! With thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for a e-ARC of this title to read and review.

Tick Tock marks Simon Mayo’s third foray into the world of adult fiction and, in my opinion, it’s his strongest offering yet.

This is a pandemic-set story, set in a post-Covid world. The infection manifests with a ticking in the ear, audible to others, that gradually gets worse and worse. And then people start dying…

The tale is told in quite an insular way, following the experiences of just three characters - Kit, a schoolteacher, Rose, his daughter, and Lilly, his girlfriend. I thought this approach worked well, touching just enough on the paranoia and panic shuddering through society without having to touch upon those who would, I’m sure, insist Covid-style that the whole thing was a government hoax.

In the past, I’ve struggled somewhat with the author’s dialogue writing, finding it rather clunky in places, but that wasn’t remotely an issue here. Furthermore, I thought the characters were likeable and well rounded, with the relationship between Kit and his daughter Rose being particularly well written.
A taut and atmospheric thriller. Recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers, Doubleday, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Just when we thought we were recovering from a world pandemic, along comes another threat to mankind.

Ever topical, Simon Mayo does it again with a brilliantly written, extremely well researched contemporary gripping story.

The story kicks off with a frightening episode where a young girl gets kicked off a bus due to the concern she may be infected with a disease that causes an audible clicking sound from the ear. The girl is Rose, the daughter of a teacher, Kit, who we meet when the book goes back 4 days to build up to the bus incident. Kit has a girl called Jess in his class who happens to be the daughter of Lilly, a scientist who is his partner. When the infection starts to get serious causing deafness and death, it becomes a race against time to find what, where and how this infection came to be so dangerous and whether there is anything possible to stop it.

The author has done a great job of penning a conspiracy theory story that takes the panic we all felt over covid, mixing it with some fear of biological terror to deliver a very believable story that will have you urging Kit, Lilly and Rose on through a journey that increases in pace making you turn the pages quicker than ever. There’s even some twists to help keep your enjoyment going which is always nice when you don’t particularly expect one.

Following his excellent first adult novel, Knife Edge, Simon Mayo has definitely added another bestseller to his list with this great atmospheric and tense thriller. Highly recommended.

Many thanks to NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest review.

Who knew that a radio DJ could be such a fantastic author? Well, I did as this is the second book that I read from Mr Mayo and I cannot wait for his next

I admit that I was intrigued as soon as I read the blurb of Tick Tock. The promise of a medical thriller where a new disease appears after the COVID days are over sounded absolutely fascinating, albeit scary. I couldn't resist getting a copy though and after I saw that fellow blogger Nicki had a great time with it, I was even more excited to read it myself... And Tick Tock turned out to be a true pageturner that had me invested almost straight away. Scarily plausible, fast-paced and highly engaging!

The story is set in a (not specified) near future where COVID is in the past and people have returned to their normal lives. Until people suddenly start emitting a clicking sound from their ears, that is... Tick Tock starts with bang and right in the middle of the future events, which can be a bit confusing (and kind of spoils some of the things happening later on to be honest). Despite this, I found myself to be fully under the spell of this story soon enough, and it was hard to stop reading once things started spinning out of control. The jumping between times could have been more fluid, but there is no denying that the pace is fast and the story reads like a train.

Tick Tock is basically a medical thriller with an almost sci-fi feel to it. There are many medical and scientific terms included, but it wasn't too hard to understand nor did it slow down the pace. The plot is scary in the way that the situation is way too plausible and it brings back COVID memories... This makes this book hard to read for some people, but if you can stomach it Tick Tock proves to be a fascinating read. The escalating situation is well portrayed and it was interesting to see Kit, Rose and Lilly working together to discover what is going on.

The character development wasn't as strong and could have done with more dept, but then again this story is mostly focused on the plot and action with the strange new disease. I personally didn't mind too much, because the characters had enough going for them to be able to connect to them anyway. Is everything they do completely credible? Maybe not. But it sure made for a very exhilarating ride, and it's definitely made me want to try more of this author.

Warning: this book discusses a pandemic and is quite close to home given what we have experienced over the past two years.

It is incredibly relevant today and was totally chilling. The author writes with a readable style, that ensures the reader is invested throughout. It is plausible, fast paced and comes to a satisfying conclusion.

My one criticism is that it is maybe a touch long winded.

DNF. NO RATING!

I just can’t read anymore!

If you’re going to write a book about a new global pandemic with unusual, unheard of symptoms I highly recommend you don’t open with a scene where the virus is in full swing, and everyone is in the know – except the reader – who has no idea what is going on in what turned into a very long scene with people acting crazy with no explanation given. I shouldn’t have to read the synopsis for a book to make sense. My opinion – only a really short teaser scene would’ve worked here.

Then we rewind to four days earlier where a girl is described as an ‘irate fourteen year old girl” and two paragraphs later it’s her father who’s an ‘irate thirty nine year old man’. Give me a break! Moving onto the dialogue, which was awful and stilted, making it impossible for me to give a hoot about characters who talk nonsense.

This one is receiving rave early reviews, so I’m definitely in the minority, but I just can’t read another 90% so I’m giving up.

I’d like to thank Netgalley, Random House UK, and Simon Mayo for the e-ARC.

Publication Date: 18th August, 2022.

The first post-pandemic thriller that I've come across so far (no doubt there will be a stampede)! This is a fast-paced story with the believable premise of a second and different pandemic in a world which is just coming to terms with the effects of the last one. There were a few too many coincidences to make it entirely believable (the teacher who first notices the new outbreak just happens to be dating a scientist whose father just happened to have worked at Porton Down and who just happened to have helped create the virus in question) but no more so than the standard Hollywood film. All told, this was a highly enjoyable book and the author has a very readable style.
Thanks to Net Galley and the publishers for the opportunity to review this book.

A Head of English notices a strange phenomenon that is affecting his pupils and then spreads. This is a dramatic tale of a pandemic and I really wasn't sure I could bear reading about something so akin to what we've all experienced / continue to experience. However, this is a decent thriller with strong characters.

The storyline moving back and forth and from the perspective of the various characters made this flow well and the premise of the clicking is excellently done. I did find it a tad longwinded, but, overall, this is a solid, interesting thriller of a read.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for the opportunity to preview.

Loved this from start to finish.
As I write this we're kind of between Covid waves with the next one on the rise and so the timing was good as it felt just long enough since lockdowns to read about a global pandemic spreading around the globe again.
The plot is plausible and nicely unfolds and I can quite honestly see this as a blockbuster film alongside the likes of Outbreak and Contagion.
A great fast-paced thriller.
Many thanks for the ARC.

After declaring on British radio a lot of times that he would never think of deepening his lockdown experience by watching "Contagion", Simon Mayo proves that he extended its reach by... writing one of the first post-Covid medical scaredemic novels. It gleefully references the last couple of years of lockdowns, social distancing and all that malarkey, while more or less also taking us back to before Covid, and a world not knowing it's, to borrow an Australian phrase, "destination f***ed".

Here we watch a Head of English at a London school, his daughter, his girlfriend who is happily in disease mapping and pandemic prediction, and her daughter, as they slowly learn that the latest major world health problem is just that – major, and worldwide, and a problem. It starts with people audibly emitting noises from within their ear – a tinnitus going in the wrong direction, if you like – and gets worse. If you have it, as some of the school pupils do, chances are you're in a couple with someone who has it, so clearly it is passing among us. But for all the world's post-Covid plans to be on top of anything like this unfolding, it has a much greater reach than just the one school.

My thoughts on this were kind of tempered by this being an early copy (and I don't want to slap wrists over this, but compared to the thousand early copies I see a year that get it right...). One online video is a woman talking to a man, but when it's discussed later the genders are swapped. Someone appears to get the symptoms twice. Each chunk ends with an italicised summary of where the characters are and where the situation is at, and they lollop from present to past tense as if I'd written them, on an off day. The perils of getting advanced previews...

But I think my thoughts had an edge from that, and much more from the novel itself. It just didn't seem a hundred per cent there. Take that aspect of it coming from a pre-Covid world, but set (and read) post-corona – the text has characters remind themselves of social distancing and R numbers and so on, but lacks the oomph of, say, a Michael Crichton "hey you humans, you think you got diseases licked? You know NA-THING!!" drama. Despite the given excuses for Scientist Lilly's feelings and behaviour, she seems surprisingly stand-offish and bloodless in her relationship with Teacher Kit, even if she sees him as more and more essential to her life – but when said excuses generate an entirely different and unexpected new plot strand for her, the book appears to do the biggest swerve in memory. And not precisely for the better.

All told this lacks the zip of a real race-against-time thriller drama, and all it does is make one want to be a medical disease specialist, Lilly practically living in Ubers and taxis on these pages. I jest of course, for none of the characters are particularly likeable enough for us to urge them to survival, let alone be them. This is a survival, disaster movie on the page, and while it suitably redresses Covid through the lens of "A Quiet Place", it doesn't do nearly as much as it should have. And the copious reference to car exhausts and emissions is risible. Much as Mayo's "Blame" was distinctive yet flawed, this too mashed up a recent cinema franchise and tried to do something sterlingly new. I think it's fair to say, it and I didn't quite click.

Tick Tock by Simon Mayo
Having read Mad Blood Rising and Knife Edge by Simon Mayo I could not wait to get started on Tick Tock and I definitely was not disappointed. This is a gripping thriller about an unknown illness which begins with a clicking noise being emitted by a person’s ear. There are all the usual posts on various social media sites of video clips of people clicking it seems harmless, it seems fun.
Then the symptoms begin to develop and suddenly it is not funny anymore. We follow the story of what is happening through the lives of Rose; who lives with her English teacher father, Kit Chaplin and his girlfriend, and renowned vaccinologist, Lilly Slater. Although this story references Covid it is definitely not a story about something like Covid. The situation develops through time and I like the references throughout about what is happening to each person at various times of the day. The tension is elevated as the book progresses and it is an engrossing thriller which was hard to put down. The characters too are well rounded and believable; I would say that Simon Mayo has pulled it off again.
I will be recommending this book to all my book groups and to friends. Many thanks to Simon Mayo, the publishers and Net Galley for the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.

A great book with a quite unique storyline. It's not unheard of to hear ringing in your ears but ticking that everyone around you can hear as well, is quite unbelievable. and very scary for the people that it's happening to. Panic starts to set in as the illness spreads around the world and no one is able to come up with a quick solution to find a cure. Following the real-life event of Covid, the story doesn't seem too far-fetched. I really enjoyed the book .

Simon mayo knows how to write pacy thrillers, and this is no exception. A post-covid pandemic could be a turn off but Tick Tock does really interesting things with the hackneyed pandemic story, focusing in on a few key characters and making sure there are both sufficient risks and enough twists to keep you going right to the end. I rattled through this, great fun.

This is my second book by Simon Mayo I had read his previous book Knife Edge and I loved it so I new I was in for a good read with this one and oh boy it was even better than the first! The story is a very topical and a real race against time thriller set just as the covid pandemic is easing down when out of the blue people begin to heal a strange click or ticking in their ear and from then on this books pace never gives up as more and more people are becoming infected but with what !
The book is so well crafted I loved the main characters of Kit, Rose and Lilly as they go on a mission to find the cause and maybe a cure for whatever this new and terrifying thing is that is rapidly spreading around the world.
As I have said the book is very topical with conspiracy theories, spies and coverups we have it all and it really works so well I raced through it eager to find out what was happening and how it would all end. I look forward to to more in the future from Simon Mayo who is fast becoming one of my favourite authors so many thanks to him.
My thanks also to NetGalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers, Doubleday for giving me the chance to read the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

this is the 2nd book i have read of simons and I adore his style of writing is so easy to follow and he never fails. to. supply tension and addiction to read till the end I will. definitely read more from Simon I have yet to read blame so. that's next on my list!

My thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishers for a copy of “ Tick Tock “ for an honest review.

I read and gave a positive review for Simon Mayo’s last book , and if anything this book is even better.
The storyline of a mystery illness spreading through the community, is even more plausible ,after everything we dealt with during the COVID pandemic. Situations that we read about in books , and watch in films ,once seemed unlikely, but now seem possible.
This was a fast paced thriller , that kept me hooked right up to the finish and it had a satisfying ending.
I could easily see this made into a successful Tv drama.

Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for a free ARC of this ebook.
After reading this in little over a day, it's finished and so am I! Breathless and tachycardia after this helter-skelter of a story. I absolutely loved it and highly recommend it. This is the story of a raging, out of control infection. It references Covid, the Salisbury poisonings, Porton Down issues and much more. The writing is at times frenetic and it needs to be given what is going on. In places there are brief details about what is happening elsewhere in the story and the sparsity of language used in these instances give such dimension to the unfolding horrors of the epidemic.
This book is a clever premise, a story of our age, and it is incredibly well told.
A well deserved 5*