3
out of
5
A good intro to an interesting world, but...
Janine Melnitz
12 December 2012
Alex Hughes has created and interesting and believable world in the first Mindspace novel, a crime novel with sci-fi elements sewn nicely in.
The protagonist is a telepath who assists the police in their investigations. It's usually run of the mill murders, drug crimes, the standard stuff. But to make things interesting, there is now a serial killer going around murdering seemingly unconnected people.
Hughes' idea of 'Mindspace' is written really well, very filmic, without too much detail overloading the description. Basically the protagonist reaches out with his mind and can 'see' what happened before, so he can watch the people get killed, even see the murder. He also has precognition, so, guess what? He's next on the killer's list! I must also be telepathic as I saw that coming from the start.
The actual case is pretty standard for any reader of Crime novels, but it's written in an easy page-turning style. The protagonist works with Cherabino, a female cop who he sees, in a vision, being in predictable danger. So even though she's a high ranking judo trainee, not afraid to use her gun or her fists, he still has to protect her.
The protagonist is a drug addict. It's not completely his fault as he got duped into performing drug trials for The Guild (the self-regulating agency of telepaths and their like) but got addicted to the substance. He's fallen off the wagon twice, but Cherabino still has angry-faith in him. Now, the trouble with drug-addicts is that they are usually quite annoying, and this guy is no exception. He gets caught red handed about to shoot up, and instead of taking responsibility for his action, he spends 2/3 of the book waaaahing about how no one trusts him and it's so unfair. That's not to say he's a bad character, just a bit flat and so boringly focused on drugs that he's not really charismatic or edgy enough to be the lead. I hope he shapes up a bit more as the series progresses.
(We don't actually find out his name until the last line of the book, but I have to admit, I didn't notice that I didn't know it until then, I guess this is another illustration of the blah-ness of the character)
The rest of the police station crew are pretty bog-standard, with the exception of Cherabino who does develop beyond her 'tough-gal' stick. She, of course, gets threatened with violent rape, because it wouldn't be a published novel without some sort of sexual violence against women. *sigh*
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