Matt Richtel, Devil’s Plaything

Devil's Plaything

Matt Richtel

Poisoned Pen, May 3 2011, $24.95

ISBN: 9781590588871

In San Francisco medical reporter Nate Idle makes some cash posting a medical blog. He also spends his free time with his editor Pauline Sanchez in her office.

At the same time at Magnolia Manor his octogenarian grandma Lane suffers from dementia. She currently responds to online questions from the Human Memory crusade. She shares a lot of personal family information with the computer that calmly says trust me. Nat ignores his grandma's ramblings until he takes her for a stroll in Golden Gate Park; only someone fires what seems like random shots, but he begins to think this culprit targeted the Idle pair. Soon he realizes the attempt is tied to an encrypted flash drive he received anonymously by an unknown person demanding a meeting though he wonders why him and his family.

The freshness to this over the top of the Twin Peaks neuroscience technological conspiracy is the beleaguered everyman's octogenarian grandma who suffers from dementia so cannot be relied on for what she remembers, which is very little beyond WWII. Still fans that ignore plausibility will be Hooked as the grandson and his grandma team up in an entertaining investigative medical thriller.

Harriet Klausner