Looking for Mr Nobody by
Sue Rann
pbk out July 04
(No Exit Press)
at £6.99
A conspiracy-pursuit story, with a touch of science-fiction. It is unusual in
that it is set in a wintry Amsterdam, with fine descritions of the city.
The heroine is Robin Carlson, an American girl with some unexplained
unfortunate secret in her past that makes her wary of men. She seems to be a
cross between a club hostess and a part-time PR woman, though again this is
never made very clear. In fact, one of the defects of the book is that she
introduces new characters without any explanation of who they are and
though by the end of the story the reader gets some vague idea from the
context, it's a little unsatisfactory.
The main pitch is that a group of computer hackers get wind of an
organisation that is researching and producing a drug that will turn soldiers
into aggressive supermen, albeit with drastic and often fatal side effects. One
of this group,Wolf, goes underground, posing as a street drop-out to
infiltrate the opposition, as they are picking up vagrants to use as human
guinea-pigs, but the effects of the drug make him lose his memory. The
heroine gets mixed up in all this through a platonic man-friend, who also
falls into the clutches of the baddies, who are backed by the establishment,
including Uncle Sam – and even the police are on their side. Another effect
of the drug is to induce a kind of telepathy, hence the SF component. Robin
and Wolf, captured by the opposition, use this to eventually triumph.
A well-written, exciting story, on the fringe of believability.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
Looking for Mr Nobody by
Sue Rann
