Allen Wyler,
Dead Wrong
(Astor + Blue Editions, 2012)


Dead Wrong is very much a page-turning thriller. The action never stops! The plotting and pacing were excellent, keeping me enthralled. I kept reading past my bedtime to find out what happened next.

I'm less enthralled with the characters. The main protagonists were fairly bland -- which I know is a style choice -- and the antagonists tended to be caricatures, albeit well-done and consistent.

The world? On a meta-level, the fact that undisclosed "classified" outfits can do anything to someone they target including murdering them -- well, sadly, I do not find that implausible these days, especially when they need to cover their own behinds. On a more grounded level, I can easily believe that any fugitive with savvy could hide from pursuit in a hospital, for any length of time. Those places are pure chaos, design-wise!

The overall plot premise is intriguing -- the transferring of memories from one brain to another -- but how that could work was pure hand-waving (transplanting a plug of tissue is highly unlikely to make memories integrate with the memories already in place, plus, one would then have two memory lines -- one with the false memories and one without. The new, implanted memories could not, I think, actually take the place of the established ones. But that's a quibble from science fiction; it tweaked my suspension of disbelief. This is usually less relevant for thrillers.

While I was a bit slow to get into it, I did find it a compelling read. Very exciting! I would recommend it to people who like medical thrillers, especially if they appreciate evil government agents.




Rambles.NET
book review by
Amanda Fisher


24 January 2015


Agree? Disagree?
Send us your opinions!







index
what's new
music
books
movies