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Without a Face
It’s 1967, and people are disappearing…
Kurt and Alice are rousted from their home one night by an intruder in a black suit and fedora. Their retaliation proves futile when the man appears impervious to a shotgun blast. Helpless, Alice and Kurt cower in the back seat of the stranger’s black sedan. The automobile races down dark, desolate highways, until Kurt attempts a bold move, putting the stranger in a headlock from behind and forcing the vehicle off the road.
The car jounces madly down the hillside, crashing into a tree, throwing Kurt across the seat. Flames and smoke pour from the hood. Dazed, Kurt finds himself holding the stranger’s head, which is now separate from the body. But there is no blood, only wires and tubes dangling from the severed neck. Kurt shakes Alice awake, helping her from the burning wreck before it explodes.
Their daring escape sparks a baffling odyssey. Alice and Kurt stumble through dark woods, happen upon a deserted home, discover an odd factory, and are becoming more lost and confused day by day. All the while being tracked by an unseen, silent aircraft broadcasting a message of salvation. To survive, they commit crimes they believed themselves incapable of, while their misadventure drives them farther and farther from their home.
[violence, animal harm]
Kurt and Alice are rousted from their home one night by an intruder in a black suit and fedora. Their retaliation proves futile when the man appears impervious to a shotgun blast. Helpless, Alice and Kurt cower in the back seat of the stranger’s black sedan. The automobile races down dark, desolate highways, until Kurt attempts a bold move, putting the stranger in a headlock from behind and forcing the vehicle off the road.
The car jounces madly down the hillside, crashing into a tree, throwing Kurt across the seat. Flames and smoke pour from the hood. Dazed, Kurt finds himself holding the stranger’s head, which is now separate from the body. But there is no blood, only wires and tubes dangling from the severed neck. Kurt shakes Alice awake, helping her from the burning wreck before it explodes.
Their daring escape sparks a baffling odyssey. Alice and Kurt stumble through dark woods, happen upon a deserted home, discover an odd factory, and are becoming more lost and confused day by day. All the while being tracked by an unseen, silent aircraft broadcasting a message of salvation. To survive, they commit crimes they believed themselves incapable of, while their misadventure drives them farther and farther from their home.
[violence, animal harm]
266 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 30, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
April 7, 2026
Without a Face is a very well-written sci-fi thriller, blending thought-provoking concepts with realistic details to create a fully engaging read from start to finish. This book is more than meets the eye. Unwrapping the truth, layer by layer, the reader is pulled into a rollercoaster of shifting perceptions, emotions and suspense, avidly searching for explanations alongside the protagonists.
Set in 1967, the plot follows Kurt and Alice, a married couple in their 50s, whose monotonous life is violently disrupted when a strange man kidnaps them in the dead of night. But this is not the only unsettling aspect of this brazen intrusion. Although putting up a fight at first, they soon succumb to the shock of realizing that this man is clearly not human. After eventually escaping to the middle of nowhere, they venture into the wild, searching for help and a way back home. Little do they know, the life they desperately hope to return to has been irrevocably altered.
As they search for any sign of humanity or civilization, they face unfamiliar landscapes, growing desperation, fear, hunger, mounting unanswered questions, unusual and violent encounters, and the imminent threat of an alien-like presence closing in.
The book’s topical themes and the characters’ authentic reactions make the plot feel all the more vivid and tangible. Along the way, Kurt and Alice are put to the test, their principles and beliefs challenged against the limits of their human nature.
Their incredible journey is primarily seen through Kurt’s eyes. Concerned for injured Alice, he’s focused on getting them both to safety. Bearing the full responsibility of her wellbeing, he anxiously examines, ponders, and questions every decision and move he makes in the midst of the bizarre and hazardous circumstances they come upon.
At the basis of the heart-pounding situations, a soft love story unfolds. The middle-aged couple grows increasingly aware of their affection for one another. They communicate without words, complementing each other – Alice, a free spirit with a gentle, cheerful, and composed nature, and Kurt, a natural leader, with a rigid, practical, and fiery temperament. This ordeal serves to test and strengthen their bond and friendship against all challenges.
Beyond the building suspense and mystery, the novel is also a subtle healing journey. From the start, the couple is shown to be mourning the premature death of their son. Their grief resurfaces even more now when faced with these extreme and agonizing circumstances. Yet, the new reality they face will ultimately redefine their values and outlook on life.
The writing style is well-balanced, with moments of calm, reflection, and introspection perfectly interwoven with scenes of action and tension, allowing the plot to be fully experienced and absorbed. This is a fully immersive novel that is as emotionally compelling as it is captivating and thrilling.
Set in 1967, the plot follows Kurt and Alice, a married couple in their 50s, whose monotonous life is violently disrupted when a strange man kidnaps them in the dead of night. But this is not the only unsettling aspect of this brazen intrusion. Although putting up a fight at first, they soon succumb to the shock of realizing that this man is clearly not human. After eventually escaping to the middle of nowhere, they venture into the wild, searching for help and a way back home. Little do they know, the life they desperately hope to return to has been irrevocably altered.
As they search for any sign of humanity or civilization, they face unfamiliar landscapes, growing desperation, fear, hunger, mounting unanswered questions, unusual and violent encounters, and the imminent threat of an alien-like presence closing in.
The book’s topical themes and the characters’ authentic reactions make the plot feel all the more vivid and tangible. Along the way, Kurt and Alice are put to the test, their principles and beliefs challenged against the limits of their human nature.
Their incredible journey is primarily seen through Kurt’s eyes. Concerned for injured Alice, he’s focused on getting them both to safety. Bearing the full responsibility of her wellbeing, he anxiously examines, ponders, and questions every decision and move he makes in the midst of the bizarre and hazardous circumstances they come upon.
At the basis of the heart-pounding situations, a soft love story unfolds. The middle-aged couple grows increasingly aware of their affection for one another. They communicate without words, complementing each other – Alice, a free spirit with a gentle, cheerful, and composed nature, and Kurt, a natural leader, with a rigid, practical, and fiery temperament. This ordeal serves to test and strengthen their bond and friendship against all challenges.
Beyond the building suspense and mystery, the novel is also a subtle healing journey. From the start, the couple is shown to be mourning the premature death of their son. Their grief resurfaces even more now when faced with these extreme and agonizing circumstances. Yet, the new reality they face will ultimately redefine their values and outlook on life.
The writing style is well-balanced, with moments of calm, reflection, and introspection perfectly interwoven with scenes of action and tension, allowing the plot to be fully experienced and absorbed. This is a fully immersive novel that is as emotionally compelling as it is captivating and thrilling.
May 4, 2026
The novel begins in 1967 with Kurt and Alice Franklin living an ordinary married life in Rescue, until a news bulletin about a deadly virus and a late-night intrusion crack their world open. What follows is a strange, escalating flight through woods, factories, false histories, impossible technology, and revelations that make Kurt and Alice question not only where they are, but what their lives have really meant.
I liked how the book starts with domestic texture: television knobs, bad reception, steak dinners, cigarettes, private marital shorthand. That groundedness matters because the plot soon becomes vertiginous. Author Lonnie Busch lets the absurd arrive by increments, so the reader is trapped alongside Kurt, trying to make sense of each new wrongness before the next one appears. The result is less a clean puzzle-box thriller than a feverish corridor, one door opening onto another, each more bewildering than the last.
I was impressed with the machinery of the premise, as well as the emotional ballast of Kurt and Alice’s marriage. Their grief over Reed gives the book its ache, and their attachment to each other keeps the speculative elements from floating away into pure contrivance. The explanations grow heavy, especially when the story pauses to deliver big historical and cosmic disclosures, but the novel’s best moments return to the small human question underneath the spectacle: what do you choose when reality itself becomes negotiable?
The target audience is readers who enjoy science fiction thrillers, alternate history, dystopian mysteries, and time-bending suspense with a strong emotional spine. I’d compare it to Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter in its interest in identity, reality, and the terror of being displaced from your own life, though Busch’s book feels more homespun, more mournful, and stranger around the edges. A reality-warping thriller with a bruised heart, Without a Face asks whether home is a place, a past, or simply the person still holding your hand.
I liked how the book starts with domestic texture: television knobs, bad reception, steak dinners, cigarettes, private marital shorthand. That groundedness matters because the plot soon becomes vertiginous. Author Lonnie Busch lets the absurd arrive by increments, so the reader is trapped alongside Kurt, trying to make sense of each new wrongness before the next one appears. The result is less a clean puzzle-box thriller than a feverish corridor, one door opening onto another, each more bewildering than the last.
I was impressed with the machinery of the premise, as well as the emotional ballast of Kurt and Alice’s marriage. Their grief over Reed gives the book its ache, and their attachment to each other keeps the speculative elements from floating away into pure contrivance. The explanations grow heavy, especially when the story pauses to deliver big historical and cosmic disclosures, but the novel’s best moments return to the small human question underneath the spectacle: what do you choose when reality itself becomes negotiable?
The target audience is readers who enjoy science fiction thrillers, alternate history, dystopian mysteries, and time-bending suspense with a strong emotional spine. I’d compare it to Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter in its interest in identity, reality, and the terror of being displaced from your own life, though Busch’s book feels more homespun, more mournful, and stranger around the edges. A reality-warping thriller with a bruised heart, Without a Face asks whether home is a place, a past, or simply the person still holding your hand.
May 17, 2026
I won this from a Goodreads giveaway and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Man, this book was weird in both a good way and a frustrating way at the same time. It starts off strong as all get out too. You got this creepy guy in a black suit showing up in the middle of the night, surviving a shotgun blast like it is nothing, and then suddenly his head comes off and there are wires hanging out instead of blood. Right there I was locked in because I had to know what was really going on.
The whole book has this strange paranoid feeling hanging over it. Kurt and Alice spend most of the story running, hiding, and trying to make sense of everything while things just keep getting more bizarre. The empty roads, dark woods, abandoned places, and that weird aircraft following them around honestly gave the story a pretty creepy atmosphere.
Now I am gonna be honest, there were parts where it dragged for me. The mystery stayed so vague for so long that after a while I started wanting more answers and a little less wandering around confused. I get that the author was going for that unsettling dreamlike feeling, and sometimes it worked real well, but other times it just felt like the story was spinning its wheels a bit.
Still, I cannot say I was bored. The book definitely feels different from most horror and sci fi stuff out there. It takes some wild swings, and I respect that even when everything did not fully land for me. If you like strange unsettling stories where you never really know what is happening until the very end, you will probably have a better time with this one than I did.
I give this a 3 outta 5 catfish!
Man, this book was weird in both a good way and a frustrating way at the same time. It starts off strong as all get out too. You got this creepy guy in a black suit showing up in the middle of the night, surviving a shotgun blast like it is nothing, and then suddenly his head comes off and there are wires hanging out instead of blood. Right there I was locked in because I had to know what was really going on.
The whole book has this strange paranoid feeling hanging over it. Kurt and Alice spend most of the story running, hiding, and trying to make sense of everything while things just keep getting more bizarre. The empty roads, dark woods, abandoned places, and that weird aircraft following them around honestly gave the story a pretty creepy atmosphere.
Now I am gonna be honest, there were parts where it dragged for me. The mystery stayed so vague for so long that after a while I started wanting more answers and a little less wandering around confused. I get that the author was going for that unsettling dreamlike feeling, and sometimes it worked real well, but other times it just felt like the story was spinning its wheels a bit.
Still, I cannot say I was bored. The book definitely feels different from most horror and sci fi stuff out there. It takes some wild swings, and I respect that even when everything did not fully land for me. If you like strange unsettling stories where you never really know what is happening until the very end, you will probably have a better time with this one than I did.
I give this a 3 outta 5 catfish!
Review of advance copy
It’s easy to relate to Kurt and Alice and their easygoing, normal life set in the 1960s. But rumors swirl in their small town, unconcerning at first, until a stranger appears in the night, setting events in motion that change the very fabric of their reality. Their strange predicament continues to compound, slowly and ever more confusing to Kurt and Alice. Having only each other to rely on for survival, their sanity is tested as they gradually learn the truth of their plight.
I read this book rather quickly, finding it to be very interesting and not wanting it to put it down. From the first page, the flow of the writing is effortless. It was just a tiny bit slower in the middle, but it didn’t detract at all from the story.
The ending was surprising, and extremely well written. Without giving anything away, I loved the descriptions and depth of truth the characters discovered.
This is a unique and intriguing book that kept me turning page after page, and will facilitate a reread to better absorb the last few eye-opening chapters. Not because it was confusing, but because it was thought-provoking.
I read this book rather quickly, finding it to be very interesting and not wanting it to put it down. From the first page, the flow of the writing is effortless. It was just a tiny bit slower in the middle, but it didn’t detract at all from the story.
The ending was surprising, and extremely well written. Without giving anything away, I loved the descriptions and depth of truth the characters discovered.
This is a unique and intriguing book that kept me turning page after page, and will facilitate a reread to better absorb the last few eye-opening chapters. Not because it was confusing, but because it was thought-provoking.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
My favourite modern playwright, Harold Pinter, became an icon because whether he wrote comedy (Revue Sketches), darkness (The Caretaker) or even about love (Betrayal), his plays glowed with menace. Now I’m not talking suspense—just a world where things can and do go wrong. It’s essential to living prose. Writer Lonnie Busch has captured Pinterism in spades. His latest book, Without a Face, is another fine example. It’s 1967. However … for those who have lived that year, there is something a little … off … in the lives of his protagonists, Alice and Kurt. But what feels off turns into utter discombobulation when their world goes from menace to survival. As they try to decipher their new, futuristic, circumstances, they dig a hole of moral ambiguity where the truth may explain nothing. One thing about Busch’s writing is that he doesn’t ever drop you into a world it takes 100 pages to explain. His characters are always so relatable we follow them even when they may be going the wrong way. Without a Face is suspenseful, terrifying, satisfying, and one of those indie books that proves indie is where great books are hiding.
April 25, 2026
Without a Face, by Lonnie Busch, is yet another bizarre and eye-opening story by an author with the great gift of imagination. The story centers around Kurt and Alice, who, one night, find themselves facing an intruder in a black suit and fedora. The story that unfolds is something right out of Rod Serling's Twilight Zone, as they find themselves suddenly engaged in world that makes no sense at all, a world where humans, Emtrons and Scrams - which are either robots or somewhat modified humans, it seems, is as confusing as it is disturbing. What is happening to them as they trip along from one incident to the next in this thrill ride, confounds them at every step, as it does for us, the reader, but in the end, the mystery starts to unravel and all is explained. The brutal reality they must face about what has happened to humanity, well, that is what makes this book a very worthy read and it will keep you reading to the end to find the answers. Well written, with a powerful and compelling message for all of humanity. Five stars!
April 7, 2026
“Without A Face” is an action-packed, fast-paced, dystopian thriller with some sci-fi elements that will have you at the edge of your seat almost IMMEDIATELY!
Alice and Kurt are enjoying a quiet evening at home one night in 1967, when all of a sudden chaos erupts when a stranger shows up and abducts them against their will. From here on, everything gets absolutely wild and you will not want to stop reading this book!
This novel has nearly everything that I enjoy in a heart-pounding thriller. It is easy to root for our main characters as they are thrust into a confusing and dangerous game of survival. Lonnie Busch does an incredible job setting the scene and even though it takes place in the late 1960’s, I kept imagining a seemingly abandoned zombie apocalypse type of world.
The storyline is unique and will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end!
Alice and Kurt are enjoying a quiet evening at home one night in 1967, when all of a sudden chaos erupts when a stranger shows up and abducts them against their will. From here on, everything gets absolutely wild and you will not want to stop reading this book!
This novel has nearly everything that I enjoy in a heart-pounding thriller. It is easy to root for our main characters as they are thrust into a confusing and dangerous game of survival. Lonnie Busch does an incredible job setting the scene and even though it takes place in the late 1960’s, I kept imagining a seemingly abandoned zombie apocalypse type of world.
The storyline is unique and will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end!
March 30, 2026
Yet another intriguing and thought-provoking read from the mind of Lonnie Busch. This book was like stepping into an episode of the X-Files or Twilight Zone, the twists and turns kept me glued to the pages. As the mystery unfolded from supernatural nightmares and then morphing neatly into a confounding science fiction shocker, we follow Kurt and Alice, an older couple from the 1960s as they piece together every confusing ordeal they encounter. But as the layers of mystery are revealed, uncannily relevant to current themes and unpleasant realities, the final twist is both surprising and heartening.
Review of advance copy
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was not in a genre that I normally read but I will definitely read more of Mr. Bushes books. I stayed interested and the book flowed right along. You really think about our world and what could happen in the future, with electronics and AI .The author has a way of keeping you on the edge of your seat wondering what is going on with Kurt and Alice. You are asking the same questions as the main characters and what they are going through. Love conquers all throughout the book and Kurt and Alice stick together throughout their adventures.
Review of advance copy
eerie 1967 small-town setting in Rescue, where disappearances build a constant sense of dread. The mysterious intruder in the black suit and fedora who upends Kurt and Alice’s lives adds a classic noir-horror vibe that kept me turning pages late into the night. Busch’s atmospheric writing and subtle speculative twists make this thriller feel both retro and unsettlingly timely
Very good, worth to read!
Very good, worth to read!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 9, 2026
End of the world...again?
This is not a loud or flashy book, but it’s thoughtful and a little haunting. The kind you don’t rush through, and maybe don’t fully understand until you’ve had some space from it. Overall a good read, though it kind of drags in places.
This is not a loud or flashy book, but it’s thoughtful and a little haunting. The kind you don’t rush through, and maybe don’t fully understand until you’ve had some space from it. Overall a good read, though it kind of drags in places.
April 15, 2026
This was a Goodreads Giveaway. It had an interesting premise and good suspense and action most of the way through. It was the ending that felt a bit anticlimactic and some inconsistencies that resulted in the lower rating. I can’t explain more without spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews