Hindsight
by Iris and Roy Johansen is a unique thriller. The protagonist
is Investigator Kendra Michaels, whose former blindness has
left her with uniquely insightful observational skills. Blind
for the first twenty years of her life before gaining her
sight via a revolutionary surgical procedure; she has become
known for her razor-sharp senses and keen deductive abilities.
Kendra has highly developed senses of smell, hearing, and
spatial awareness that she’s used to help the FBI and
CIA in many difficult cases. What makes these plots very interesting
is the dialogue that realistically explains how she can reach
conclusions through her observational skills that others cannot.
“It is very challenging to write how she sees things
others do not. We have to think how Kendra can perceive things
about people and places. She has sharpened her senses. We
did not want to tap into the paranormal. We go out of our
way to make it clear that her hearing, sight, and smell are
not better than anyone else’s, but she has sharpened
them to help her perceive things. For example, in this story,
we had the BMW Series 7 key fob because it is an elongated
six-sided fob that is very distinctive and is like no other
fob.”
In this novel, Kendra goes back to her roots, first introduced
in a previous book, Night Watch, but this plot brings it to
the forefront of the story. Two staff members have been murdered
at a school for the blind where Kendra spent her formative
years in San Diego, California. Kendra takes a personal interest
in the killings, because she cared about the people who were
murdered, and she wants to find those responsible. She grudgingly
enlists the help of childhood friend, Olivia Moore, who is
still blind and the creator of an ‘awesome’ website
for the blind called Outasite; a special needs assistant dog
named Harley that played a very huge part in the story, FBI
agent Metcalf, and her friend, partner, and lover Adam Lynch.
Kendra and company must solve this violent and complex case
to save the school, the Woodward Academy for the Physically
Disabled, that helped her, and Olivia become independent.
“In doing our research, we found There are apps that
have text to speech. This allows those who are blind to read
and compose emails. There are also Braille keyboards where
the dots come up as quickly as letters, but now a lot of emails
has the computer read out loud. Another technology allows
the blind to play a form of baseball called beep ball. We
watched this video on you-tube and new we had to put it in
the book. I go to a lot of consumer tech shows where I make
notes and make sure I find a way it makes itself into the
stories.”
There are plenty of red herrings that create suspenseful twists
and turns. Full of mystery, danger, and a tinge of romantic
friction, allows for an action-packed story.
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