Elizabeth Greene’s father is working on a top-secret science experiment when he suddenly goes missing. With the help of her American friend Tim, she must follow clues left by him before his disappearance and find both him and a part of the experiment he left for her to find—which, if in the wrong hands, could cause catastrophe.
Bevan Frank’s THE MIND OF GOD will hook readers right away by placing them in the mind of a college security guard, unknowingly guarding the most groundbreaking scientific discovery of humankind—and also of the man whose job it is to steal that discovery. The ruthlessness of the villains is immediately established, which keeps the audience on their toes for the rest of the novel—these are villains who don’t care about the audience reading them or the innocent people they might have to kill to get what they want. Throughout the book we are hinted at an ultimate evil plot worth of a James Bond villain, but it is impossible to know what that plan is. We are dropped morsels of the master plan throughout the novel, but not enough so as to wear down the suspense.
We also spend very little time with the main villain or with his hitman, so we are not in their heads long enough to know what they are thinking. Instead, we spend time with the jogger who slips a note to a man at a bar, the president of a bottled water company who’s very nervous about driving his shipment, the orphan child paid one hundred dollars by a mysterious man to smash a car window but take nothing. All of these characters are clearly part of the master plan, but we—like them—don’t get to see the mind behind it. That leaves us wondering throughout nearly the entire book how these seemingly unrelated elements come together, what the end goal could be, and how a young woman looking for her missing father and his science discovery could possibly put a stop to it—whatever it is.
Some of the dialogue is choppy, and sounds almost like characters writing emails to each other instead of speaking face-to-face. This makes it hard to really see some characters as people. However, this also emphasizes how each character is trying to be their own person and might have their own ambitions, but are ultimately just a part of this master plan that’s much more than them—and by being a part of this greater scheme are dehumanizing themselves.
THE MIND OF GOD is an entertaining and cleverly constructed thriller that will leave readers guessing until the end.
~Jess Costello for IndieReader