Thursday, March 7, 2019

You're Dead

Organizational psychologist Dr. Waters is a happily solitary guy with a few deep attachments, including to his boss Paresh Rajput, the owner of a thriving hi-tech aerospace company. Until something really bad happens to CEO Rajput, which throws Waters into a lunatic swirl of murderous stalkers, corporate intrigue, amorous female executives and crafty cops who see the inscrutable psychologist as murder suspect #1. Waters is hardly defenseless. A weight-lifter and former wrestler, ace poker player and master student of human nature, he takes it all on with surprising strength and determination. If they only knew. As with the connivers surrounding him, Waters has his own secrets. Autistic as a child, he lives with the consequences some blessings, others a curse. And a love affair that's hidden even more deeply, or so he thinks. You're Dead is a mystery/thriller, an adventure story, though in the context of the present zeitgeist the financial stakes of hi-tech ascendancy and flourishing commerce, corporate and personal venality, manipulations by the rich and powerful men and women and the ugly presence of base criminality that crackles around the fringes. It's about troubled and troubling minds, and institutions that struggle to assert relevance, but also how one man, single-minded and apart, can disrupt what the lead detective on the case calls, "Their clever-clever ways." Every writer has their themes and pre-occupations. For Knopf, it's the intricacies of the mind, the most complex organism in the universe. The aberrations, as well as the indefinable "normal". You're Dead is an action-filled examination of what happens when minds of all kinds collide.


You’re Dead (Mystery Thriller)
By Chris Knopf
The Permanent Press www.thepermanentpress.com
ISBN #978-1579625665
Price $29.95 (Hardback)
Price $9.95 (Kindle)
Rating 4-Stars

Dr. Waters discovers the bodiless head of his boss when he goes home. He becomes the first suspect, and decides he needs to find the real killer before he’s arrested for the murder. The case becomes a fantastical investigation, as only the author can pen them, and would have been a first rate detective novel.

I’ve never cared for the author’s dialogue, but his fiction is certainly topnotch, if not a little beyond belief, but that’s why we read - to escape reality for a few hours in an action-packed mystery with beautiful women and hard men. Highly recommended.

Tom Johnson

Author of NINA FONTAYNE

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