Book Review: Game Plan

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Game Plan     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Charles Wilson
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Medical   Thriller
St. Martin’s, Jan 2000, $24.95, 304 pp.

Ten years ago, a secret government agency recruited five individuals incarcerated at Fort Leavenworth to participate in a top-secret medical experiment. The prisoners received brain implants that gave them encyclopedic knowledge, enhanced reflexes, and the ability to grasp new data as fast as a computer. The experiment succeeded, but the group sponsoring the tests failed to consider the new abilities of the prisoners would enable them to escape.

For the next decade, nothing is heard from the three men and one woman who vanished into society. However, one of the escapees has recently died in a freak car accident. His body was brought to University Medical Center where pathologist Dr. Lambert does an autopsy and finds and removes the implant. Lambert is killed and his associate Spence Stevens believes the implant led to the doctor’s murder. He vows to see that justice is done, but is unaware that he has stepped into a global plot of world domination by super beings.

Think of a perfectly running jet engine and one will understand the pacing of GAME PLAN. The story line is tautly interwoven with the subplots returning to move the main story line forward to its climatic touchdown. Charles Wilson crafts a non-stop thriller that seems to go at a SST pace, but works because Spence is an endearing character that humanizes the tale. GAME PLAN turns into a game winner.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner