Mosaic

by John R. Maxim

A topsecret government hopes to use "multiple personality disorder" to create a master assassin, but when intelligence officer Major Roger Grayson is sent to investigate the "experiment", he meets a beautiful woman who has been mysteriously targeted by the government. Reprint.

Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Fiction, Audiobook

448 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 1, 1999

About the author

John R. Maxim was born in Greenwich Village, NYC, educated at NY Jesuit Schools (Xavier and Fordham) played all the street sports and most team sports.
Comes from a family of cops and a few Feds. After school, took up flying, skydiving and dirt-track stock car racing until the Military decided it could do without him. Then went into marketing and advertising. Several awards. Rose to Senior VP at major New York Advertising agencies. Work involved a great deal of international travel. Major hobby back then was sailing.
Always wanted to write, however, and, one night on the bar car, decided to give it a year, succeed or fail. Sold first novel at age 41. Wrote 12 more plus one non-fiction, averaging a year and a half each. Translated into ten languages. Several were optioned for film or TV. Still waiting.
Took up skiing. Many trips to Switzerland and Colorado. With the kids gone, sold our Connecticut house and moved to Hilton Head Island with his beautiful wife, Christine, herself a champion sailor.

Reviews

[Beverly]

Major Roger Grayson is assigned by his boss General Hoyt to evaluate two projects. One is studying people with Multiple Personality Disorder to see if it is possible to teach others to manifest different personalities when under cover. The other study is trying to find a way to control fear so as not to effect one's performance. They are both being run by a CIA agent, Prentice Teal at an institution run by a Dr. Zales and his wife Leticia. Grayson is skeptical. Interesting ideas good twists.

[Joe O'Connor]

Good; Somewhat confusing tale of military tests with women with multiple personalities and a major who tries to set things right.

[Brenda]

Love this book. I've read it over and over and never get tired of it. It's my go-to read when nothing else grabs my attention.

[Dave Taylor]

An entertaining summer read that revolves around military uses of people with multiple personalities. It's breezy and populated with interesting characters, albeit one-dimensional, and more or less ignores the fact that people with mental health issues don't really want to be lab subjects. It could have probably ended at least 50 pages before the actual end of the book, which is too neat by half. But... it's a summer read, as I said, so if you lower your expectations, you might find it fun.

Story: Major Roger Grayson is a "fixer' for the Army and is tasked with an off-the-record investigation into two top-secret government experiments focused on exploiting people with multiple personality disorders. This leads him to the beautiful Susannah Card, a talented "mosaic" with the ability to control her separate personalities. Or does she? For that matter, why was Grayson picked for this task?

[Caroline]

This one was a huge surprise. It went just one Neo-Nazi too far, but it was good overall. All of the characters were very well developed and the story kept you moving. I didn’t have high hopes for this bargain book I picked up, but it was worth it.

[Centralperkpage]

A solid 4

The story and the writing is great, I enjoyed it. People say to read books to learn about new things. This book exactly served that. I learned soo many things. The most important of all is patience. I felt it was a lengthy and kinda hard read. My longest read yet, but in the end it was worth it.

[Helene]

Playing with the human mind is a dangerous activity. The book explores the notion of using multiple personalities to create the perfect 'desired skill' whether assassin, thief or warrior. Somewhat unsettling if possible but definitely non-ethical.

[Anthony]

Mosaic is a quick read and enjoyble. It is escapism reading and the premise is scary albeit believable. The government is experimenting with persons who have multiple or alternate personalities. Of course the US Army gets involved because of the potential for military use. there are villans and heroes and some with "gray" personalities. There is violence and love and mystery. Though at points it was hard to differentiate the dialog. That is,who was saying what. I recommend reading this book for a change of pace. Can be read in a full day. I bought this book from Amazon in the Kindle edition.

[Mike]

2.5 stars -- the premise of the book, involving corruption in a military project at a mental health hospital for patients with multiple personality disorder, was interesting. However, I didn't enjoy the pacing; the first 1/3 of the book seemed to drag for a long time, and the last several chapters moved too quickly--it felt like all the book's problems were wrapped up neatly at breakneck speed. The characterizations also could have been much deeper. Not the kind of book I'd recommend, but still, as a thriller, I guess it gets the job done.

[Joni]

I looked for a sequel after reading this book because I want to know what happened to the characters.

[Dave]

This was a great plot and would make an interesting screen play...looking forward to other novels by this author.

[Lori Carlson milcic]

Thrilling page-turner.

[Ken Weinert]

False

[Steve Schlutow]

This book was weird. I did not enjoy it, nor can I recommend it.