DON’T ANSWER THE PHONE!
The note on the envelope was addressed to a man who had been officially dead three years earlier. It read: “To Ed Constance. If you’ve come this far, that is your name.”
He had another name only yesterday… He had a wallet with credit cards, a driver’s license and a social security car to prove it. He had a photograph of a woman who, only last night, he could not remember. But now he did: Sarah, his wife.’
In the early hours of a summer night, seven drugged children are found dumped beside a highway in northern Maine. There’s no record of their disappearance. No therapy or hypnosis can release them from their amnesia. They are the Apostles, created by a sinister organisation with one terrifying endgame in mind.
Ed is one of those abandoned children, locked away for years and then set free on an unsuspecting world. As his college days approach and with only fragments of memory left, his life implodes when an old adversary calls upon him. Suddenly the true purpose of his whole existence is revealed. He does the only thing he can. He runs…
Special plans have been devised for Ed Constance, but he isn’t like the others. He knows what his pursuers want. Will he have the strength to deny them their ultimate goal?
Oliver Johnson’s expertly-paced, high-concept thriller grips from its opening pages to its spectacular finale.
OLIVER JOHNSON is an editor of commercial fiction and non-fiction and has worked with some of the biggest names in the industry including John Grisham, Iain Banks and Michael Crichton. He is the author of several fantasy novels and children’s books. He spends his time between London and a writing bolthole in East Sussex. Caller Unknown is his first thriller.
My thoughts: This is a strange and at times bewildering book taking in the supposed CIA MKUltra experiments, terrorism, brain washing and mind control. It all moves at an incredible pace.
Ed was one of seven children found abandoned by the side of the road, he was maybe nine years old, and could recall nothing of his life before that moment. Adopted by a couple in Boston, he’s exceptionally bright and capable, excelling at school. But he has no friends beyond the owner of the bait and tackle shop by Lake Tranquility in Maine, where his adoptive parents have a house.
When things from his past start to enter into his present on his first day at college, he runs, assuming a new identity and moving to Florida, as far as he can go.
Building an entirely new life for himself as a successful lawyer, marrying and believing himself safe from the mysterious organisation that had him as a child, he manages to live quietly for some years. Then things take another strange turn and he must turn to his only friend, Vietnam vet Jerry Dove once more for help.
There are so many twists and turns, so many threads in this rather brilliantly written book, I was completely hooked and could not put it down. And the ending! Oh, so intriguing.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 