Brain Damage - Softcover

Burkholz Herbert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0747232938 ISBN 13: 9780747232933

Publisher: Headline, 1992

Synopsis

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About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

Burkholz's mind-reading government employees (The Sensitives, 1987; Strange Bedfellows, 1988) return as the nation's only defense against the murderous plan of a ruthless and dead CIA chief. Relax. They don't work for the IRS. The Sensitives are the one-in-a-million aberrants born with the ability to read the minds of ordinary citizens. Unsuited to life in the mainstream, these curious creatures are happiest living together on a federal farm in Virginia, chatting silently with each other and performing the odd federal task for which they are the only possible solution. The odd task this time is to put a stop to a rogue operation set in motion by the dying Deputy Director of Operations at the CIA. Uncancelable orders have gone out to four unidentified assassins to do four horrible and seemingly unrelated deeds, including rape, arson, and murder on the high seas. The Sensitives know who the victims are and when the crimes are to be committed, but they can identify the assassins only by hanging around their targets to pick up the evil intentions when they come within range. Range is about 200 feet. Uncomfortably close. As minds are picked, the Sensitives find that the crimes all have something to do with a college campus love- triangle back in the Sixties. It sounds hokey and science-fictional. It's not. Burkholz never uses the ESP device as magic or ex-machina. The mind-reading is there to provide either surprise or exceptionally interesting insight and amusement. Which it does. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly

As he did in The Sensitives and Strange Bedfellows , the author adds an intriguing science fiction element--the ability to read minds--to the basic thriller formula in his third novel about a very special band of CIA operatives. When the agency's deputy director of operations dies, his private files contain records of non-rescindable orders to four unknown agents specifying a series of appalling, apparently unrelated assignments: the gang rape of a 16-year-old, the murder of an obscure cruise ship comedian, arson at a Florida rooming house, putting the fix on a small-time college basketball game. The new DDO dispatches Sensitives Ben Slade, Vincent Bonepart, Martha Marino and the woman known as Snake to identify and stop the anonymous agents. Burkholz keeps the action moving smoothly while building tension as the scene shifts from site to site. Periodic quick cuts to a Libyan terrorist camp gradually reveal the dead DDO's motives, stemming from a decades-old love triangle. The Sensitives' extrasensory capability, though a vital plot element, never overwhelms the story in this offbeat and enjoyable adventure. BOMC alternate.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Headline
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0747232938
• ISBN 13: 9780747232933
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 416