Mind's Eye by
Paul McAuley
pbk out June 06
(Pocket Books)
at £6.99
A thriller with a garnish of science-fiction, rather than a crime book,
though what is being perpetrated is undoubtedly a crime. Alfie Flowers'
father vanished in the Levant when Alfie was a child, and his grandfather
was an archaeologist-cum-spy in the Middle East. Alfie has petit-mal fits
caused by his viewing some arcane glyphs, prehistoric patterns
discovered by grandad in caves in Iraq in the thirties.
Now similar patterns are appearing in London associated with anti-Iraq
war graffiti, which disturb his neurological system. He tries to track down
the artist with the help of his journalist friend Toby and soon gets mixed
up with a sinister American psychologist who is also trying to find the
artist, in order to track down even more potent glyphs left in the caves, to
flog them to government agencies to be used in psychological warfare.
The first half of the book is based in London, with added complications
from MI6 and Harriet Walker, representing the remnants of 'The
Nomads', the small team of archaeologists who found the things in the
first place. She already had experience of the glyphs in a calamitous
advertising campaign in West Africa, where a similar combination of
sensitising drugs in a chocolate drink plus optical stimulation in
advertisements led to the death of hundreds of children. Then the action
moves to Iraq during the recent conflict, as the various parties infiltrate in
from Turkey and search for the ancient glyphs. There are man-hunts in
underground caves, which get dynamited, and the book has overtones of
James Bond and Rider Haggard, but is an exciting and suspenseful read.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
Mind's Eye by
Paul McAuley
