Dead Anyway -- Chris Knopf

I've read and remarked on three or four of Chris Knopf's previous novels in two different series, the ones about Sam Aquillo (here's one example) and Jackie Swaitkowski (here, for example).  His new one features a different character, Arthur Cathcart.  In the first few pages of the book, Arthur loses his wife and almost his life.  He suffers a severe head wound.  Really severe.  So when he finally regains consciousness and begins to recover, he has a long way to go both physically and mentally.  He's determined, however, to find out the reasons for what's happened to him and to do something to the people responsible.  He goes about it with computers.  He knows a lot about them, even more than some of the hotshots in the movies.  ("Hollywood doesn't know that half of it.")  He uses disguises.  Trickery.  Elaborate con games (including a great Gatsbyesque party).

Sometimes, as he admits, Cathcart is no longer sure who he is, but he knows he's not who he used to be.  His brain doesn't work the way it used to, not entirely, and he's lost a bit of what I suppose I'd call his humanity.  So his struggle's not just to find out what happened and why but to recover a bit of himself, or at least to find out who he's become and to make peace with that.

Knopf does a fine job of storytelling here.  It's engrossing entertainment with an edge, and since there's at least one big plot thread left unresolved, I'm sure that he's started a new series.  I'm looking forward to finding out what happens to Cathcart in the next volume, and I'm betting you will be, too, after you read this one.  Check it out.