Blind Spots

Starred review from February 27, 2023
Seven years before the opening of this excellent near-future mystery from Mullen (Midnight Atlanta), life changed irrevocably when a catastrophic event, the Blinding, led to global human blindness. Technology has been developed to give people vision: small metal discs called vidders have been implanted on almost everyone, sending visual data to their brains. But that life-saving and sanity-saving workaround comes under threat. Homicide detective Mark Owens, who works in an unnamed American city, lands a case in which the killer, who fatally shot scientist Ray Jensen, was apparently invisible to the vidder of the colleague who was with Jensen at the time. That suggests that someone may have found a way to hack vidders, a development with frightening implications. Owens investigates, suspecting that Jensen’s murder connects to his research on enhancing vidders so that the cerebral cortex could better process the information they provide. Mullen makes his imagined future plausible by sweating the details. For example, after the Blinding, strangulation murders dominated, because the killers could be sure of the result. Fans of P.D. James’s Children of Men will be enthralled. Agent: Susan Golomb, Writers House.

September 1, 2023

Best known for the "Darktown" trilogy centered in 1950s Atlanta, in this novel Mullen returns to policing, but with a speculative twist. Seven years ago, humans gradually went blind, and the world crumbled--murder and destruction running rampant. Detective Mark Owens wears a device implanted in his temple to allow him to see, just like everyone else who chooses to embrace the new technology and can afford to do so. Owens, who survived being a policeman during the Blinding, now welcomes the return to quasi-normalcy. But when a tech billionaire is murdered, and the witness swears that a black blur committed the crime, Owens is swept into a conspiracy involving the government, tech companies, and his friends and coworkers. Narrator Gary Tiedemann's deep and steady voice brilliantly depicts the weariness of Owens and his coworkers in a post-virus United States but also evokes the excitement of a blockbuster movie finale in the unexpected ending. Tiedemann's clear and precise narration takes center stage since there are no production errors, and his performance elevates the novel. VERDICT A police procedural with a dystopian twist, this fast-paced thriller will also appeal to those who enjoy adrenaline-fueled stories.--Sarah Hill

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