About the Author:
Richard La Plante has a degree in clinical psychology and has worked as a psychiatric counsellor. He has also led a rock band and worked as an actor, as well as training many top sports personalities. After two fantasy novels he turned to writing thrillers and has also written for television.
From Kirkus Reviews:
The X-Files might be useful here as a kind of litmus test. For those who love the TV mega-hit, this fourth in La Plante's creepy-crawly series (Steroid Blues, 1995, etc.) stands a better than average chance of finding favor. X-File naysayers should probably look elsewhere. Because realityor whats commonly accepted as suchgives way here to a set of operating principles difficult to describe and even harder to define. This makes for a world in which anything is possible and nothingperish the thoughtrequires the anchoring of conventional science. ``We're all just one big mind,'' says a La Plante character who's got it figured out. X-File fans will no doubt know what that means, or at least be comfortable with not knowing. They'll also be prepared for Justin Gabriel, a heartless killer who commits his crimes while locked away in Philadelphia's Greaterford prison. By hiring hit men? Nothing so mundane. He dreams his wayit's a ``spontaneous transmission of energy `' thinginto his victims minds and frightens them into cardiac arrest. Bill Fogarty, retired cop and one of the series heroes, becomes a case in point. He's being driven to distraction by a terrifying Gabriel emanationan enormous black bird of prey. No one else can see it, but it haunts Fogarty, who obsesses over it, can't get free of it, and is being destroyed by it. Enter his pal Joey Tanaka, forensic pathologist, martial arts specialist, and co-series hero, who rids Fogarty of his demon. How that happensa kind of Pilgrim's Progress to a Zenlike never-never landforms the burden of La Plante's tale. Not for everyone, obviously: too strange, too surreal. Yet it's paradoxically true that the most affecting thing in the novel is the friendship between Fogarty and Tanakaindomitable, imperishable, and as traditional as David and Jonathan. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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