Murder, mayhem and mind control -- Iris Johansen's new thriller, Killer Dreams, has all three in abundance.
Unfortunately for Johansen, the title and the cover are both tacky and off-putting. But don't let it fool you; the book itself lives up to her usual high standards in every other matter.
The main character, Sophie Dunston, is a single mother and a world famous doctor who specializes in sleep disorders. When an act of unthinkable violence shatters her world, she vows revenge.
She is after her former boss, Sanborne, a corrupt sociopath who wants to use a formula Sophie created as a weapon, instead of the cure for night terror she had intended. Through sadistic and multiple fatal testing he has discovered the sinister aspect of the formula -- its ability for mind control.
However, he needs Sophie to fix some of the problems he has encountered, such as a 70-percent death rate of test subjects, before he can begin selling it to foreign leaders. When she refuses his bribes, he resorts to kidnapping and death threats to force her to help.
At this point, Sophie is not only after revenge. Riddled with guilt about how her formula is being used, she decides she is responsible for wiping it off the face of the planet.
But she realizes she can't take Sanborne out on her own. With her life, her son's life and thousands of others' lives in the balance, she turns to an unlikely source for help -- two of the survivors of the inhumane testing.
They all race against the clock as Sanborne and his associates plan to release the formula on an island of natives as a final test before they take the product international.
What I love about Johansen is that she is a master at creating a world where moral and political corruptness, deadly formulas, illegal testing and hitmen are the norm. She establishes rules to her world and does not vary from them the entire way through.
When reading this book you are transferred into a different kind of America: A gritty, tough, shady America, and you believe it. It is where the book excels the most -- her ability to get the reader to accept her world and suspend his or her own disbelief.
The plot line is a bit absurd, but there is enough suspense in it to carry you along and make you forget about any skepticism. It's fast paced and a definite page-turner.
Killer Dreams, like most of her books, embraces the gray areas of life. The good guys aren't always perfect. Her heroes are cruel at times.
They use each other and they kill without remorse. It's not always black and white, and that is the very thing that makes her book rich and interesting to read.
The novel does have a few shortcomings. The dialogue is slightly cliché at times, and the climax is one of the weaker parts of the novel.
After a great build-up of suspense throughout the rest of the book, it was a slight disappointment. But her characters and the rest of the plot are so strong they make up for it. Grade A-
