Mirage

Rating:
Summary: Great Book, Recommend it!
Review: I just read Mirage by Don Passman and it was a great read. It's about a brilliant computer cryptographer who is the unwitting victim of a brainwashing project, as the FBI engages a cult deprogrammer/mind control specialist to unlock what's in his mind. The book is a real page-turner which I definitely recommend. ...

Rating:
Summary: A Big Disappointment
Review: So far, Mirage has an average rating of four stars. I must respectfully dissent: Mirage is a big disappointment, especially when Passman's first book, The Visionary, was so good. The plot revolves an army experiment in mind control; when it is shut down many of those men involved in it have no place to go but into the shadow world of terrorism where their skills can find a market. One of the first victims is computer specialist John Bergman. Here the story begins to weaken, as beyond Bergman the cast of characters is cartoonish, even silly - with one exception which I dare not reveal. Between the interesting beginning and the non- surprise ending, the book careens from pillar to post with the good guys acting like Keystone Kops and the bad guys like the Three Stooges. What is really scary is that the FBI field agents' relationship with Washington reads like the Congressional hearings we are witnessing now.

Jill Landis, the lead agent in the field on this case does show some strengths. But like Bergman, who seems to wear a name tag that says "Geek", she wears one saying "Vulnerable". One character worth watching is the mind-control specialist Landis consults. Trying to figure him out is a useful distraction if you are determined to get through the book. I should also mention that there are a couple of scenes of gratuitous violence which added nothing to the story but were a sledge hammer to a nail in trying to move the story along.

The mind control/terrorism plot with its Manchurian Candidate twist was a great idea. Unfortunately it really doesn't go anywhere. I'm willing to bet that Mr. Passman has some more good writing in him. It just doesn't show in Mirage.

Rating:
Summary: MIND OVER MATTER
Review: There has probably never been as successful a book on mind-control/brainwashing as Condon's "Manchurian Candidate." Passman attempts this concept in this well-written, if slightly overwrought, novel. Our hero, John Berger, is one of those likeable mid-forty guys who has a ponytail and an earring, so you know he's got to be cool... He is brainwashed and becomes a suspect in a bombing that kills two people. As most heroes do, he stupidly runs from the FBI, and tries to find out what really happened on that bizarre weekend.
Along for the ride are several standard characters: the vulnerably shy FBI agent, Jill Landis, who falls in love with Herr Berger; the power-driven Combs, who resurrects a government program called "Mirage" after it is shut down by the government; Chuck Durham, one of those nice, well-built guys who knows all about mind control; Berger's mother who is one heck of a woman; and several other cookie-cutter characters that serve no purpose but to help advance the plot.
But, look, I don't think Passman wanted great literature, just a chase novel, that is loaded with some pretty effective scenes, and even a major plot twist at the end that you didn't see coming. All in all, a good diversion.
RECOMMENDED.