The Man with the Golden Mind, Tom Vater

Maths not being a strong point, I got myself tied up in knots reading THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN MIND. Perhaps it wasn't helped by not having read the earlier book in the series, but I could not, for the life of me, get the timeframes straight in my own mind.

Twenty-five years after Julia Rendel's father was killed at a CIA base in Laos, she asks Maier to investigate his murder. Not long after this Rendel is kidnapped and Maier is left in a country he doesn't seem to know a lot about, working with the scant information provided before Rendel's disappearance, searching for the CIA base, the killer, a cache of gold, a legendary CIA file and its author, Weltmeister.

The path to all of the above winds its way from Vientiane, through the countryside of Laos, coming up against a rather eclectic series of challenges. There's a sharpshooter who appears to be very accurate, and very selective in his killing. There's a lost tribe of heavily tattooed young men, who follow the word of an American MIA. There's the ex-servicemen looking for more of those MIA's, locals prepared to lead Maier through the jungle, and a mysterious character with a personal connection to the searched for airbase, who appears to hold all the answers. There's also some rather exotic locations, islands with ex-prostitutes, temples, jungle, hidden airfields, fancy and not so fancy hotels, and quite a few bedrooms along the way.

The plot is big, brave and ever so slightly crazy. Especially as the beginning of the book has to do some seriously heavy lifting introducing a range of characters that might leave readers with an urge for a whiteboard, and some maps. There's also a lot of connections being built - between those characters, and with the past and the present. Which was part of what was doing my mathematically challenged little brain in. Couldn't for the life of me work out the ages / age gaps and likelihood of everybody being where they were in the past, let alone where they were now. It all got a little baffling at points.

As did the character of Maier, who is so formal, so cautious, so calculating in some ways, and yet, willing to throw his hand in with every friendly face (especially if it's female) that comes his way.

After a while the chaos of the age gaps, the oddness of the characters, the exoticness of the setting all kind of started to meld into something that was, sure, very odd and a bit weird, and why the hell not.

The great thing about reviewing books is that sometimes something presents itself with absolutely no fanfare, leaving you with no idea of what to expect. THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN MIND certainly served up something very unexpected, and not exactly one out of the mould when it comes to thrillers. It left this reader with a wishlist that now includes the earlier book in the series.