It begins with trilogy main characters Teresa and her best friend Thomas, as Thomas is about to receive the Swipe. The implant will erase Thomas's memories and send him into the Maze that the two of them have helped construct to save the world. Teresa laments her own upcoming Swipe, which beautifully sets up the parallel of this book's haunted protagonist, who'd do anything to forget the apocalyptic nightmare he lived.
Thirteen years earlier, survivors of the "worst natural disaster in known human history" camp out in the Appalachian Mountains of western North Carolina—including Mark and Trina, the stars of this novel. A flashback reveals the pair on a New York City subtran the moment the sun flares hit, powering down electronics and fatally burning many above the surface. Now a Berg (an aircraft) appears for the first time since that disaster, and unleashes flying darts and a new sense of chaos. The darts inject a highly contagious virus that manifests symptoms with puzzling inconsistencies. The impact on the characters plays out like an Agatha Christie thriller.
Dashner's macabre architecture throws up many obstacles for his characters' survival. The group must decide whether or not to risk saving an orphan who may be infected, and also confronts a cult headed by a disfigured man who believes the sun flare is a demon plague. A must-read. --Adam Silvera, reviewer and former bookseller