The Mentalist

by Rod Duncan

Enthusiasts call Harry Gysel a psychic. To others he is a fraud, a meddler in the occult. When he appears to predict the death of a woman in the audience of one of his shows and that woman is subsequently found murdered, Harry becomes an instant celebrity. The police aren't so easily convinced of his innocence. 'You've come here to find the truth,' says Harry Gysel to the audience. But the truth is not so easy to find.

Genres: Crime, Audiobook, Mystery

Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Rod Duncan worked in scientific research and computing before settling in Leicester to be a writer. His first novel, Backlash, was short-listed for the John Creasey Memorial Award (now the CWA Debut Dagger).

After four crime novels he switched to fantasy. The Bullet Catcher's Daughter was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award. He is currently writing a series of alternate history books, called ‘The Map of Unknown Things'.

Rod is also a screenwriter, and was once eaten alive in the feature film Zombie Undead.

Reviews

[Steve Wales · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm having such a busy week that I basically just picked the smallest book I could find in the local library! Also the title and definition of 'mentalist' at the beginning reminded me of the TV series of the same title which I enjoy, though this isn't related other than having a main character who is a 'pyschic'.

Stage psychic Harry Gysel appears to predict the death of a woman in the audience. When she is found dead, Chief Inspector Morgan is brought in to investigate.

It was interesting reading this just after 'Confessions of a Conjuror' since it involves some of the cold-reading and audience-manipulation tricks of the apparently mind-reading 'psychic' explained by Derren Brown.

[Stacy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decent wee thriller. I listened to the audio book, which was excellently read by Brian Bowles - will definitely be looking for more books read by him!

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun little book. 96 pages. Really a novella. There seems to be a whole series of these books from Crime Express, short novels by current hard-boiled writers, some not very well known over here in America. This one was quite well done. In a very quick time, Duncan was able to create four very distinct and interesting characters. He even managed to get in quite a lot of backstory of his main character. The writing was crisp and stripped down. My only quibbles are I did not get a very good feel for the place, which isn't a real problem in such a short narrative that is plot-driven, and I did figure out who the bad guy was fairly quickly, which again wasn't much of a problem in such a short book.

[Ikram Bateoui · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very fast read. This story, though short, had very good character development. While it concluded quickly, the entire read was enjoyable and the ending was not abrupt but came to a natural conclusion. I wholeheartedly like Duncan’s explaination on how Harry, the main character, reads people. The more someone wants to be read, the better Harry can do it. Even more, if someone is aware of the trick they still buy in when it confirms something they really want to believe. After reading it, I found myself seeing how often we do this in most of our relationships with people and how it is something we develop over the years. A child blunders into the middle of a conversation, oblivious to the fact that others speaking are annoyed, and tries to explain what has excited them. No one wants to listen so can't "hear" what the child is excitedly saying. Later in life, we learn to watch as a "mask" falls over someone's face, alerting us to the fact that the person has quit listening. Some never develop this ability to accurately "read" the people around then. Others acutely develop this ability, to the amazement of one and all. Harry Gysel is one of the amazing ones, and Duncan's exceptional word smithing brings that to life for the reader.