MASTERMIND

 4.5 stars out of 5

Despite a Twilight Zone-worthy plot that normally falls a little outside my reading matter wheelhouse, I must say I enjoyed this book overall. Another plus is that it's the first of a series, so I can look forward to the next installment.

The stars of the show are FBI Special Agent Jessica Blackwood and Dr. Theo Cray, a mental genius and scientist with a shady background that makes him, shall we say, unpopular with the FBI, CIA, leaders of other countries and no doubt the families of people he admits he's killed. The equally intelligent Jessica, too, has plenty of enemies and isn't likely to make the FBI's most wanted employee list.

As this story begins, a huge portion of Manhattan suddenly goes completely dark with a foggy substance; no electricity, no Internet, no phone service and, for the FBI, no clue as to what happened or why and raising the question of whether it might happen again somewhere. When Jessica gets called in to check out the situation - and narrowly escapes death - she becomes certain that the blackout is the work of Michael Heywood, a.k.a. Warlock., who managed to escape prison not long ago. She was responsible for putting him in jail to begin with, so not only is he more than capable of concocting some kind of nefarious plan, he's got his sights trained on bringing Jessica down as well.

In fairly short order, it's determined that some kind of electromagnetic pulse short-circuited all the electronic systems, prompting the investigative teams to conclude that the blackout was an act of terrorism. Switch then to Dr. Cray, who's in Myanmar working on vaccinations and is injured. Jessica saves him, thus providing the two with a history (never mind for the present that neither totally trusts the other). But as other blackouts hit other major cities and other oddities like a large number of missing animals add mystery and danger, it's clear that Jessica needs Theo - and vice versa - to get to the bottom of things and save the free world.

Needless to say, there's plenty of intrigue and full-on action, with chapters shifting perspectives from Jessica to Theo. As the series first, it stands alone fairly well - although several references to things that happened in the past aren't fully explained and were a little confusing to me. Then I learned that there have been several books featuring Blackwood alone; no doubt that's where the references originated (but which doesn't excuse not clarifying them here).

It all comes down to an exciting conclusion that brings the possibility (as expected) for more collaboration between Jessica and Theo. As I said earlier, I'm definitely interested in reading more - and I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review a pre-release copy of this one. Good job (and BTW, this would make a great movie or TV series)!

Mastermind by Andrew Mayne (Thomas & Mercer, September 2021); 317 pp.