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Killfile, by Christopher Farnsworth, is a fast paced fantasy adventure
novel set in today's world of cutting edge technology companies
and secret government agencies, with added flashbacks to the
2003 Iraq war. The hero, ex-CIA agent John Smith, has a powerful
and secret weapon - the ability to read people’s minds
near him, and his ability to manipulate those peoples’
minds to generate their uncontrolled actions. This serves
as a means to give John an advantage in the various confrontations
in which he finds himself. Written in the first person from
John’s perspective, I found myself deep in the thoughts
and emotions of an individual not quite at ease with his mind
controlling abilities.
John is hired by a billionaire software executive wanting
to use John's supernatural mental abilities to retrieve surreptitiously
stolen software code from a competitor, and soon John finds
himself on the run, evading the security people from the company
that has the code. The ensuing chase is quick and exciting,
inter-dispersed with recollections by John when he was with
the CIA and involved in the darker aspects of the Iraqi invasion
and the interrogation of captured terrorists. These recollections
serve as basis for how John discovered and used his mental
abilities, and how they were exploited for intelligence gains.
I found this more than a typical contemporary action novel,
and soon got into John's emotions and conflicts as he evades
his pursuers. To gain an advantage, John calls in favors from
some of his contacts in the underworld to survive and evade
his pursuers. It's a moral boundary he can cross easily to
gain the upper hand. The narrative is laced with humor, especially
when John reads the minds of people, revealing everyday thoughts
that pass through our heads, to which most of us can relate.
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