This is the first novel I have read by Blake Crouch, and it won’t be my last. This is a futuristic novel that is ground-breaking, action-packed and compelling.
Police officer Barry Sutton’s life changes forever when he is trying to talk a woman from jumping off a Manhattan rooftop, but he is unsuccessful and when she leaps her final words are, ‘My son has been erased.’ Barry goes to investigate her case and hers is not an isolated case. All over the country people are waking up to lives different from the ones they fell asleep to, with devastating results. People remember vivid memories that are not their own, or are these memories somehow real? Confusion reigns.
Media say it is ‘False Memory Syndrome,’ a frightening new disease, but as Barry looks further into this claim he discovers something much more sinister, something with the potential to kill everyone on the planet if left unchecked.
Meanwhile in another part of the country, neuroscientist Helena Smith is developing a new technology in the hope of saving her mother’s memories (and other peoples) from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, in the hope that people can remember their more precious memories, a first kiss, their wedding day, the final moment with a loved one. But the entrepreneur Helena is working for is intent on taking her discoveries to a whole new, shocking level.
The premise of this book is thought-provoking, but it is the way the story pulls Barry and Helena together that is pure genius. This is a thrilling book about memory and saving the world, that works towards an ending that is incredibly well done. There is also a tender love story at its heart, that gives this story another level of emotional involvement. Recursion is extremely well done.
Reviewer: Karen McMillan
Macmillan publishers