The Mind Game

Rating:
Summary: A Thriller about Brain Manipulations
Review: Ben Ashurst was living a peaceful life as a student at Oxford University until he meet a famous investigator who offered him to participate in a research - as a volunteer human guinea pig - bases in emotions and reactions but what he never expected was that his trip to Kenya ended in a nightmare and back in England an almost persecution mania because of situations given to study his reactions and feelings without his knowledge and consent. These limit situations make him angry and curious and start investigating until the find out the real purpose and the brains behind the project. This is a very psychological thriller in which the reader have to pay attention to every dialogue to follow the sequences of the experiment and Ben's emotional responses to the manipulation and the second thoughts of the researchers.

Rating:
Summary: Exciting medical thriller
Review: Oxford researcher and instructor James Fieldhead leads a team on a field experiment centering on better understanding of human emotions. James enlists his student Ben Ashurst to serve as a guinea pig to test a new device in a luxurious resort in Kenya. To encourage Ben to come, James allows him to bring along his girlfriend Cara on this all expense paid for "holiday."

Initially, Ben enjoys the vacation of a lifetime. However, the experiment begins to place him in danger and fear as to what will be the next twist. He turns paranoid, trusting no one including his mentor and his girlfriend. When the experiment is completed, Ben retains his anger and rage, feeling unfairly used and with a need to know whom is really behind the game he just played and lost and what is the ultimate victory.

THE MIND GAME is an exciting medical thriller that is at its top game when the story line revolves around modern psychology theory. As the plot veers from neurology and game theory into the chaos of a typical thriller's cat and mouse chase, it loses some momentum as the audience struggles with a loss of reality. In his debut Hector MacDonald has shown he can entertain and educate his audience with a great intelligent psychological thriller, but needs to show he has the endurance to stick to his prime plot without adding unnecessary gimmicks that spins away from a winner. This book is still worth reading as one of the better sub-genre entries in quite awhile.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: a great debut
Review: This is a great debut novel by young British author Hector Macdonald who impresses immediately with his great and very involving style. His characters are well-drawn and the concept of the book is immediately highly intriguing.

Oxford student Ben Ashurst is your average Oxford student who leeds a fairly uneventful life all the way down to his fairly dull girl friend Jenni. Trying to keep up with the ritzier and glitzier crowd in town he attends the parties of his aquaintance Pierce who leeds the life of a rich dandy. When the exotic and very attractive Cara turns up at one of these events, Ben is smitten and drawn into a stream of events that soon is beyond his control. To gain Cara's interest he tells her about an exciting emotions study that his tutor, Professor Fieldhead is planning, and for which he refused to be the guinea pig. In no time Cara has changed his mind and the two of them are on a plane to Africa, courtesy of Dr. Fieldhead and the research on his breakthrough emotion sensor. But what starts as an apparent dream holiday in a paradise resort to study the somatic responses to pleasure, very soon turns into a shocking nightmare for Ben, as he finds himself caught in a cobweb of lies and paranoia.

The storyline of the book is very imaginative and well thought-out, impossible to figure out even for the seasoned suspense buff. Every time you think you know what will happen, there is a well-designed twist, and the author effortlessly keeps you going to the highly entertaining conclusion.

A very enjoyable book and an impressive debut for a young author. One hopes that more of these will follow