(I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.)

Jacob Underwood is not like other people.
He has Cotard’s Syndrome. He believes he is dead. Which makes his job as a hired assassin neutralising ‘problems’ for DBG, a massive multinational corporation, very simple. He carries out the task – and feels nothing.
Now DBG has such a problem. A key employee, Emily Buchanan, has disappeared, taking with her a fortune and priceless information which could destroy the company. Jacob must track her down. In previous assignments, he had worked with cold logical precision, but this time he has to confront a threat that he first must understand before it destroys him…

There are books that start like a bull at a gate and never let go until the final page...this was not one of those books.
There are books we call "slow burners" - slow, steady stories that build to a tense, exciting finale...this wasn't one of those either.
There are books that start like a bull at a gate, and just go nowhere after that...this IS one of those books...

The first 100 pages of this book were really solid. It laid down the groundwork for Jacob's disease, the dystopian setting, it really hooked me in with the tightness of the writing. I thought I was in for a cracking novel. We are shown some things about the world we are in, but we are also left to pick our own way through the structures that have been put in place...and I like that.

And then it sort of got lost in itself. It wasn't bad by any stretch - but it felt like it was trying too hard to be something it wasn't, and became a "feel like I have read this before" kind of standard dystopian thriller.

And that is a shame because the opening was amazing and I thought there was so much more there to be delved into...


Paul
ARH