Helpful Score: 2
Finder is a master storyteller. This is a good novel of international intrigue about a former CIA agent that became involved in a project that left him the ability to "hear" other people's thoughts. An interesting story with lively events and a cast of characters, none of whom can be trusted.
A wild ride of a read, with one potential problem for some readers. It's basically a spy thriller, but opens with and realies heavily on a science fiction device which must be accepted without question by the reader or the rest of the book just doesn't work. Overall, I enjoyed it, but the "spy sci-fi" theme was always there in the background of my consciousness.
Ludlow want to be - spy travels the globe pushing limits of human endurance thwarting conspiracy to take over world...ok if you like this sort of thing...
BookList
The idea of a spy with mind-reading ability might seem somewhat hackneyed, but Finder makes it work in this dense, post-Soviet Union, secret-agent novel. Finder's characters, Ben Ellison and his physician wife, Molly, leapfrog the globe seeking the killer of Molly's CIA director-father after the CIA equips Ben with the ability to read people's thoughts. From the get-go, Ben becomes a target of unknown assassins, and two particularly thrilling episodes--one in a rat-infested bunker and another in the labyrinth of the Paris Metro transit system--lead him to believe that big money is at stake here . . . money that could fund a frightening New World Order. Ben and Molly are likable characters: Ben is the spy, but Molly's abilities as a doctor and a quick thinker are an enormous help throughout the caper. (It's good to see a female character become more than the usual hand-wringing window dressing in a thriller.) While the couple traverses the globe from Tuscany to Zurich to Canada to Washington, D.C., they become wary of trusting anyone. Any regular thriller reader will be able to predict the first big twist involving the leader of the operation to fund the New World Order, but the second major surprise is a beaut, and it sets up the slam-bang finish as Ben desperately tries to read every mind in a Washington courtroom in order to uncover an assassin. Finder does not overuse Ben's ESP, thereby preventing this top-notch thriller from being just another gimmicky novel.
The idea of a spy with mind-reading ability might seem somewhat hackneyed, but Finder makes it work in this dense, post-Soviet Union, secret-agent novel. Finder's characters, Ben Ellison and his physician wife, Molly, leapfrog the globe seeking the killer of Molly's CIA director-father after the CIA equips Ben with the ability to read people's thoughts. From the get-go, Ben becomes a target of unknown assassins, and two particularly thrilling episodes--one in a rat-infested bunker and another in the labyrinth of the Paris Metro transit system--lead him to believe that big money is at stake here . . . money that could fund a frightening New World Order. Ben and Molly are likable characters: Ben is the spy, but Molly's abilities as a doctor and a quick thinker are an enormous help throughout the caper. (It's good to see a female character become more than the usual hand-wringing window dressing in a thriller.) While the couple traverses the globe from Tuscany to Zurich to Canada to Washington, D.C., they become wary of trusting anyone. Any regular thriller reader will be able to predict the first big twist involving the leader of the operation to fund the New World Order, but the second major surprise is a beaut, and it sets up the slam-bang finish as Ben desperately tries to read every mind in a Washington courtroom in order to uncover an assassin. Finder does not overuse Ben's ESP, thereby preventing this top-notch thriller from being just another gimmicky novel.
pretty good, a bit farfetched
Not up to par with the rest of his books.
This is a reprint from 20 years ago, I didn't realize it at the time but it didn't alter the fact I found it to be interesting in the first half but getting into the second half it just seemed to drag and I hate books that keep inserting words I can't pronounce, etc. I gave up on it and went on to something else.
"Finder winds his tale tighter and tighter as mystery is piled on mystery, intrigue on intrigue." -- Clive Cussler
Once again Joseph Finder doesn't disappoint. This book kept me up half the night!
From cover:
Harrison Sinclair, director of the CIA, has been killed in a car accident. His son-in-law, Ben Ellison -- an attorney and ex-agent -- instantly hears rumors of sinister forces within the Agency. The hunt for the truth will rush Ben headlong into a web of conspiracy beyond his control, where he is compelled by an artful, inescapable maneuver back into the employ of the CIA, and lured into a top-secret espionage project in telepathy that will endow him with "extraordinary powers" . . . .
"Spectacular . . . The action is unrelenting . . . Electrifying." Boston Sunday Herald
Harrison Sinclair, director of the CIA, has been killed in a car accident. His son-in-law, Ben Ellison -- an attorney and ex-agent -- instantly hears rumors of sinister forces within the Agency. The hunt for the truth will rush Ben headlong into a web of conspiracy beyond his control, where he is compelled by an artful, inescapable maneuver back into the employ of the CIA, and lured into a top-secret espionage project in telepathy that will endow him with "extraordinary powers" . . . .
"Spectacular . . . The action is unrelenting . . . Electrifying." Boston Sunday Herald
