Though the twin forces of progress and innovation ensure that almost every aspect of our world is in a constant state of change, there remain, in our lives, a handful of immutable truths. The sun will always rise and fall; the seas will always ebb and flow; and the human mind will forever be ours. For as much as drugs can alter our consciousnesses and various meditative techniques can elevate our state of mind, our thoughts, our emotions, our essential selves, belong solely to us. No matter how hard they try, no one else can steal them from us. But what if, someday, this unshakable law could be violated by the advancement of technology? What if, in the future, our minds are open books that can be rewritten against our will? What would that world look like and how would we be safe? It is to this scary future that Mr. Hamilton turns in this, his second instalment in his Greg Mandel Series. His conclusions are chilling.
In a near-future Britain making a slow and painful recovery from political extremism and economic oblivion, life is hot, sweaty and difficult. Rampant Climate Change has banished the temperate British Isles to the history books, replacing this pleasant memory with a tropical reality beset by frequent monsoons which lash england with vengeful savagery. Perhaps the UK might have prepared for such disastrous weather by educating its citizens and implementing public works projects to help mitigate the damage. But instead of preparing for the inevitable, the country has spent the last ten critical years clenched in the authoritarian fist of the Peoples Socialist Party (PSP) whose ruinous collectivist policies have allowed England's infrastructure to decay to nearly pre-20th-century levels. Yes, the PSP has been defeated and political freedoms have since been restored, but the balance of power is tenuous and total chaos is beating at the door.
Through this socioeconomic maelstrom navigates Britain's best economic hope. Event Horizon is one of the world's most preeminent corporations. Focusing on bleeding edge technologies that hope to repair a battered Earth while eventually sending humanity to the stars, it is helmed by Julia Evans, the young but brilliant granddaughter of its now postmortal founder. Beautiful but deeply isolated, Julia must fend off rapacious attacks from both external and internal enemies while steering her grandfather's pride and joy through the tempestuous waters of the 21st century. It's no wonder then that when Britain's leading physicist, and Event-Horizon collaborator, is found grotesquely murdered in his own highly secure home, she's worried enough to summon Greg Mandel out of retirement to solve a most gruesome case, a case with chilling implications for the future of both humanity and the world it has ruined.
In almost every way, A Quantum Murder is an improvement on the novel that gave it life. Energized by a scalpel-sharp mystery, it is embittered the cynicism of Cyberpunk, sweetened with a splash of salacious sex and finished with a cast of interesting characters to create a heady concoction worthy of a techno-thriller. Like with Mindstar Rising, Greg Mandel is the novel's strongest presence. The military veteran turned hardman detective has just started to learn how to be happy in semi-retirement when his empathic abilities once again return him to the frontlines of a war dominated by unscrupulous humans and powerful corporate interests. It is a tangle a genius would struggle to unknot. Mandel's legendary intuition will have to suffice.
For all of the mystery's brilliance and Mandel's brutish charm, problems remain. Though the PSP is thankfully confined to a secondary role, it still occasionally makes its inane presence known. See my review of Mindstar Rising for a more in-depth critique of this somewhat bizarre conceit. More troubling is the extent to which Mr. Hamilton reduces Julia Evans to a lonely, obsessive whiner. Ambitious and clever in the trilogy's opening act, she is here reduced to a collection of unflattering, girlish cliches. It may well be that the author is using her to depict how a young woman might cope with possessing absolute power. If so, it is not believably done. Julia is maturer in the first novel than she is here and she had no less power then than she has now. It seems likely then that Mr. Hamilton was simply stumped as to how to deploy the character here. Whatever the cause, her third of the novel falls resoundingly flat.
Notwithstanding its flaws, A Quantum Murder is catalyzed by a top-shelf mystery from which Mr. Hamilton only occasionally diverts. Slimmer, meaner and sleeker... Excellent entertainment. (4/5 Stars)
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