.

I want to thank St Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review Blind Spots by Thomas Mullen. I thought this futuristic science fiction thriller had elements that could be all too true.

Amazon / Audiobook / Goodreads

MY REVIEW

Wow, what a concept. I love the cover for Blind Spots by Thomas Mullen and when I read the blurb, I knew I had to read it. I mean…check it out…Seven years earlier everyone went blind. Technology steps up to fill the gap, creating a device that allows people to see and downloads information directly into your brain. NOW…WHAT CAN POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely is an observation Lord Acton made in a letter to Bishop Creighton on April 5, 1887.

With our technological advances in the health care field, Blind Spots by Thomas Mullen may be a warning. I mean, everything is hackable. Why someone would want to do that? There can be many motivations. Greed, hate, power…

The book started out predictable and slow for me. Those who want…everything…take advantage of a bad situation and go for broke. They will stop at nothing to have it all.
Abuse of power, corruption, greed, and all those things that corrupt the corruptible.

The Blinding. The cause is not known for sure. Could it be a bioweapon? Could it be a virus? Think pandemic. What happened when Covid hit, taking down one country after another until it spread worldwide. Did the elite and moneyed get preference? Were those who wanted to take advantage of the situation able to do so? How long does it go on? Years? Decades?

I felt for Homicide Detective Mark Owens, but couldn’t quite connect with him, or any of the other characters. I love the plot of a story, but my reading enjoyment has changed and I want, no, I need, that character connection.

I wanted to love it, but the writing, though I cannot say exactly what it was, did not grip me, did not keep me hanging on by my fingertips. BUT, it did keep me involved. I thought I would be raving while reading it, maybe even throwing my ereader, but that didn’t happen. No matter how badly I wanted to rage, I was thinking, yep. Figured that. Knew that. I wonder if maybe I have become so enured to the CRAP floating around these days that I am immune.

For the rating…First of all, this is an ARC. Things can be changed, twisted and tightened up to improve your reading experience. I flipped between a 3 and a 4. If I did halfsies, it would be 3 1/2.. In that case, I round up to a four. I loved the premise, the technology, and the abuses that follow. I don’t know if it is me or the writing lacked that something extra to get my emotions ramped up, but it is a book I would recommend. It can be a warning, in a way. Technology and all its goodness, can be misused. How do we get the benefit without paying the price? Would you get a vidder, a device that gives you sight and downloads information directly to your brain?

I voluntarily reviewed an ARC of Blind Spots by Thomas Mullen.

GOODREADS BLURB

A riveting crime novel with a speculative edge about the ways our perceptions of reality can be manipulated.

Seven years ago, everyone in the world went blind in a matter of months. Technology helped people adjust to the new normal, creating a device that approximates vision, downloading visual data directly to people’s brains. But what happens when someone finds a way to hack it and change what people see?

Homicide detective Mark Owens has been on the force since before The Blinding. When a scientist is murdered, and the only witness insists the killer was blacked out of her vision, Owens doesn’t believe her—until a similar murder happens in front of him. With suspects ranging from tech billionaires to anti-modernity cultists—and with the bodies piling up—Owens must conduct an investigation in which he can’t even trust his own eyes.

Thomas Mullen, the acclaimed author of Darktown and The Last Town on Earth, delivers an unputdownable crime novel about one man’s search for truth in a world of surveillance and disinformation that’s all too recognizable.

ABOUT THOMAS MULLEN

Thomas Mullen is the author of Darktown, an NPR Best Book of the Year, which has been shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Southern Book Prize, the Indies Choice Book Award, has been nominated for two Crime Writers Assocation Dagger Awards, and is being developed for television by Sony Pictures with executive producer Jamie Foxx; The Last Town on Earth, which was named Best Debut Novel of 2006 by USA Today and was awarded the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for excellence in historical fiction; The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers; and The Revisionists. He lives in Atlanta with his wife and sons.

Website

• You can see my Giveaways HERE.
• You can see my Reviews HERE.
• If you like what you see, why don’t you follow me?
• Look on the right sidebar and let’ talk.
• Leave your link in the comments and I will drop by to see what’s shakin’.
• I am an Amazon affiliate/product images are linked.
• Thanks for visiting fundinmental!