Assessment:
Plot/Idea: Paine immediately sets the scene for the novel's overarching plot without diving in too quickly, creating a compelling buildup that propels the plot forward. Emma's desperation to advance in her career is palpable, and the trials she faces because of that drive rich with suspense.
Prose: While there are times where details meld into one another, making it hard to discern the bigger picture, Paine generally writes with decisive, energetic prose.
Originality: The twists here feel organic, and Paine excels at building edgy tension. That skill, combined with the story's intriguing premise, makes this stand out.
Character/Execution: Fashioning Emma and Trey as the two protagonists is a clever choice, and Paine portrays their personalities in vivid strokes. The ending is brutal for both of them, but crafted in a way that will grip readers.
Date Submitted: May 28, 2024
Paine (The Abduction) spins a first-rate thriller that serves as an incisive metaphor for the dangers of artificial intelligence. In present-day Baltimore, graduate student Emma Petranova has spent years researching and toiling on a project about the psychology behind digital mass persuasion that seems to be a shoo-in for a prestigious prize—but when the project does win, her controlling professor, Dr. D’Angelo Santan, claims all the credit. A day after a shouting match in the parking garage, the professor goes missing. In January 1998, rich psychopath Trey Wilkes is hanging around the University of Baltimore, hoping to recruit a computer geek that will allow him to devise a technology to send dangerous subliminal messages via mass persuasion on the then-nascent internet. After failing to devise a solution on his own, decades later, Trey learns about D’Angelo’s research and decides he will stop at nothing to get his hands on it—no matter who he has to hurt or kill to accomplish that. Paine offers smart jolts and surprises while making this dark dystopian scenario plausible. As Emma and others (including Trey’s former colleague Malcolm Schmidt) fight to find and save D’Angelo, Trey convinces Emma that he’s one of the good guys and seduces her for good measure. Meanwhile, the body count of Trey’s former hires for his unsuccessful project rapidly mounts, with several dispatched in spectacularly gruesome fashion—and it seems that evil will take over good. As Emma and Malcolm solicit help from others, innocents (including a young child) may end up as collateral damage.
The author does a masterful job of continually ratcheting up the tension and expertly weaving in red herrings. Action is crisp, though some of the torture details may be too much for squeamish readers. Polished and professional, this well-plotted and expertly wrought suspenseful tale will tick all the right boxes for readers who enjoy heart-stopping and scarily plausible stories.
Takeaway: Twisty, scarily plausible thriller that grips from page one.
Comparable Titles: Blake Crouch’s Recursion, Jon Evans’s Exadelic.
Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A
