Class Action by Chris James

AMAZON UK
AMAZON US

This is my second rendezvous with this author, my first with The Second Internet Cafe - Part 1 The Dimension Researcher. My opinion of him then was that he's an excellent and intelligent writer, one who can make you turn pages faster than you ever thought possible. Class Action was, in fact, his debut novel and my goodness, he certainly knew how to make an inaugural splash.

The story is set in a Warsaw courtroom. A man is in prison for the murder of a young woman, but it falls upon a young Polish litigator, Alex Moreyl, to prove that he committed the murder after seeing a violent film: that a powerful message during the film was relayed to the culprit, telling him to commit the crime. The proof? Advanced technology that enables every thought that’s ever entered a person’s head to be extracted and read. With convincing evidence from an expert in the field, the case looks as if it will be done and dusted in no time. But a catastrophic event throws Alex into a dangerous, ruthless, political battlefield between powerful entities, one in which he almost loses his life and those of his wife and family are in grave danger.

This is a futuristic thriller, brilliantly written. It’s original and clever; clever, because although the process of compulsory brain scanning is an almost unthinkable eventuality, the events of the political arena and dangers and threats of terrorism, however, are not so far removed from the present day. Technology, it seems, may advance in leaps and bounds, but nothing changes in politics or in the fight for supremacy between major states. This is a book that takes a glimpse into the future but touches base with present-day reality.

Action, intrigue, excitement, thrills, complexity, vision. This book has all those things.

Oh, and authorial genius.