Read a book last week that ended mid-sentence, no warning

I picked up a thriller from a thrift store in Portland 3 years ago, forgot about it until last week, and the last page just cuts off with a character saying "But then I saw..." and nothing else. No sequel note or trick ending, just dead air on page 347. Has anyone else run into a book that literally stops in the middle of a line without any framing?

2 comments

2 Comments

mitchell.wade2d ago

Oh man, that's such a bummer. I had a similar thing happen with a sci-fi paperback I found at a used bookstore. It just stopped mid paragraph on page 289 with the main character about to open a door. No cliffhanger setup, no author's note, nothing. What worked for me was I looked up the ISBN online and found out the book was actually part of a series I didn't know existed. The next book picked up right there, so it was this weird serial thing they did back in the 70s. Might be worth checking if your thriller has a sequel or was maybe originally published in magazine installments or something.

morgan.joseph2d ago

That definitely sounds like it could be one of those old serials. I had a similar thing happen with a mystery novel my dad gave me, ended on page 212 with a gunshot. Ended up being a three-part story they released as separate books, so the next one started right after.