The Memory Collector

No cover — Meg Gardiner: The Memory Collector (EBook, 2010, HarperCollins)

eBook

English language

Published Oct. 19, 2010 by HarperCollins.

ISBN:: 978-0-00-736604-0

(2 reviews)

Forensic psychiatrist Jo Beckett's speciality is the psychological autopsy - an investigation into a person's life to determine whether a death was natural, accidental, suicide, or homicide. When Jo is asked to do a psychological autopsy on a living person - one with a suspect memory who can't be trusted to participate in his own medical care - she knows all her skills will be put to the test. Jo is called to the scene of an aircraft inbound from London to help deal with a passenger who is behaving erratically. She figures out that Ian Kanan has got anterograde amnesia, and can't form new memories. Jo finds herself racing to save a patient who can walk and talk and yet can't help Jo figure out just what happened to him. Suddenly a string of clues arises, something to do with a super deadly biological agent code-named "Slick", a kidnapping, …

Forensic psychiatrist Jo Beckett's speciality is the psychological autopsy - an investigation into a person's life to determine whether a death was natural, accidental, suicide, or homicide. When Jo is asked to do a psychological autopsy on a living person - one with a suspect memory who can't be trusted to participate in his own medical care - she knows all her skills will be put to the test. Jo is called to the scene of an aircraft inbound from London to help deal with a passenger who is behaving erratically. She figures out that Ian Kanan has got anterograde amnesia, and can't form new memories. Jo finds herself racing to save a patient who can walk and talk and yet can't help Jo figure out just what happened to him. Suddenly a string of clues arises, something to do with a super deadly biological agent code-named "Slick", a kidnapping, and a secret partnership gone horribly wrong. Jo realises Kanan's addled mind may hold the key to preventing something terrible from happening in her beloved San Francisco. With time running out, she will have to get deeper into the life of a patient than she ever has before, hoping the truth emerges from the fog of his mind in time to save her city - and herself.

4 editions

Stephen Hayes reviewed The memory collector by Meg Gardiner

None

2 stars

This book started off OK. There was a mystery about what had caused an airline passenger to go berserk on board a plane, and whatever it was seemed dangerous and possibly contagious. But after the first fifty pages or so, the plot seemed to come unravelled.

It reminded me of a book I had bought to read on a plane a few years ago, [b:Temple|144792|Temple|Matthew Reilly|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172166050s/144792.jpg|955290] by [a:Matthew Reilly|83714|Matthew Reilly|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1239697024p2/83714.jpg]. Reilly was quite frank about his aim to write an action novel where the action never lets up, and so one improbable scene follows another until it descends into mind-numbing tedium. Well [a:Meg Gardiner|61237|Meg Gardiner|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1247324111p2/61237.jpg] writes a little bit more articulately than Reilly (not very difficult) but after one or other character jumped the shark for the fifth or sixth (or was it the seventh?) time, I found myself nodding off to sleep in the middle of some exciting action-packed …

This book started off OK. There was a mystery about what had caused an airline passenger to go berserk on board a plane, and whatever it was seemed dangerous and possibly contagious. But after the first fifty pages or so, the plot seemed to come unravelled.

It reminded me of a book I had bought to read on a plane a few years ago, [b:Temple|144792|Temple|Matthew Reilly|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172166050s/144792.jpg|955290] by [a:Matthew Reilly|83714|Matthew Reilly|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1239697024p2/83714.jpg]. Reilly was quite frank about his aim to write an action novel where the action never lets up, and so one improbable scene follows another until it descends into mind-numbing tedium. Well [a:Meg Gardiner|61237|Meg Gardiner|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1247324111p2/61237.jpg] writes a little bit more articulately than Reilly (not very difficult) but after one or other character jumped the shark for the fifth or sixth (or was it the seventh?) time, I found myself nodding off to sleep in the middle of some exciting action-packed scene with no clear indication of how or why the characters got there. They simply move from one action scene to another.

Well, you get the picture. If you're on a long plane trip and don't mind dropping off to sleep in the middle of what you're reading, it will do.

MONO

rated it

Jan. 7, 2014