MADreads

Nerve damage

July 21st, 2009 Liz C. - Alicia Ashman

Imagine a world where you have a pretty good life.  You’re moderately successful in the art world, becoming known for large sculptures made with scrap material.  You’re living in a small New England community where pretty much everyone knows everyone, and you can still play your weekly game of hockey with friends.  You’re in a relationship even though you can’t quite let go of the wife who died 15 years ago in a terrible accident.  What if all those memories and that life you lived together is a lie?  In Nerve Damage Peter Abrahams imagines just such a scenario to very scary effect.

Roy Valois isn’t sure where to go with his life.  He has just finished maybe what is his best piece of work, a sculpture he has named after his deceased wife Delia, and has hopes that maybe now he can move past and forward.  Almost on a dare, Roy, with the help of a young friend, hacks into the morgue of the New York Times, interested in his obituary.  It doesn’t mention that major hockey goal he made, and it has wrong information about his wife and where she worked.  When Roy contacts the reporter responsible for the obit, he sets off a chain of events that has him fighting for his life on two fronts: an unforseen medical condition and a powerful and secret political organization.  All of which makes for an involved thriller impossible to put down.

Entry Filed under: Recreational Fiction, Thriller