The Dead Man

The Dead Man
Joel Goldman
Pinnacle
ISBN: 9780786020409
Fiction, Thriller
Reviewed by John R. Clark

Anyone who likes a good thriller with medical or technological hooks will enjoy this book. Jack Davis, retired FBI agent, gets talked into taking on a job investigating possible leaks or sabotage of research in dream control at the Harper Institute of the Mind. Subjects have been dying in ways which replicate the death dreams they disclosed as part of the research and now a lawyer, hired by three affected families is threatening a huge lawsuit.

Jack has considerable baggage of his own. In addition to having lost his son to a child molester many years before, then losing his daughter to a drug overdose and his wife through divorce, he suffers from a neurological disorder which can send him into painful spasms without warning. The difficulty doctors have had coming up with an accurate diagnosis, coupled with the lingering suspicion that his late daughter told him where $5 million in drug money has been hidden, makes his relationship with his former employers extremely rocky.

Jack's medical condition and estrangement from his former employer make for great plot elements as do the flashbacks to his desperate attempt to save his daughter and his unusual meeting with the ex-policewoman who owns the house he thought he was leasing from another woman. It turns out the current owner is the woman's niece and has just been released from prison for an impulsive theft of gems while a city cop in Maryland. Add in his relationship with a psychologist who has her own issues both with her ex-husband as well as the man who hired Jack to investigate the mysterious deaths at the Harper Institute and you have plenty of intrigue to keep you reading well into the night.

Even though I figured out who the killer was ¾ of the way through the book, The motives for doing so kept me guessing and turning pages until the end. All in all, this is a very good addition to the thriller genre and made me want to read other books by the author.