The central premise of SHAKE THE JAR, the third book of the Key Murphy thriller series, is simple. Murphy, a self-described “lucky freak” from Philadelphia, is known across the globe as “that memory guy” for his exploits. He is able to access ancestral memories thanks to an extremely rare and newly discovered gene that encodes memories in DNA, through which they can be passed down the generations. Whereas the first book in the series revolved around the medieval Irish manuscript known as the Book of Kells, SHAKE THE JAR primarily explores the memories of Arin, Murphy’s moneyed Jamaican wife—who shortly realizes she is reliving the experiences of Montoya, a Black slave whose participation in the Chilean War of Independence alongside Bernardo O’Higgins was crucial in asserting that country’s sovereignty. But after their foiling of a plot to assassinate the vice president of the United States in the previous instalment, there is a price on Murphy and Arin’s heads. Angry that their intervention has interrupted the flow of dirty money to their coffers, crime syndicates are ready to do away with them at the first opportunity—to say nothing of the shadowy figure known as Li Chen.

This is a heady mix. We get the sort of jet-setting associated with James Bond or Jason Bourne, a fair dose of historical drama, action-adventure infused with geopolitics of the Tom Clancy type, and a touch of hacker lit. But the mash-up is done intelligently, and Murphy, despite the somewhat cloying aw-shucks attitude of an average person unexpectedly finding himself in elevated circumstances, is likable in an everyman sort of way. Author Kevin Barry O’Connor ensures the plot cracks along at a good pace and is sure enough of his ground to flit between timeframes in the present. The dialogue is natural-sounding, though he is sometimes guilty of overegging the descriptive language: coffee becomes “black gold,” the Sun a “fiery ball,” and so on. The presentation is also stylish, albeit with a couple of missing periods and quotation marks here and there. Overall, SHAKE THE JAR is impeccable literature of its type: tight, exciting, and filled with intrigue.

Kevin Barry O’Connor’s SHAKE THE JAR blends action-thriller, a little science fiction, and history into a compelling story.

~Craig Jones for IndieReader