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Overview
"Dr. Jeff Duran suffers from severe panic attacks when he ventures too far outside his home office. At times, he remembers phrases of a foreign language he has never learned. And there are curious memories he cannot explain - of distinct smells, music, the spray of ocean sailing. But no sooner do these sensations and images begin to surface than they disappear." "Then, after a patient commits suicide, Duran's life spirals out of control. The victim's half-sister, Adrienne Cope, blames Duran for filling her sister's head with "recovered" memories of horrific childhood abuse. But Adrienne soon discovers some shocking facts about him - facts that even he is unaware of." "The stakes are raised when unknown assassins burst into Duran's office and bloodshed ensues. But who is their target: Adrienne or Duran? Running for their very lives, forced to trust each other, they must now work together to unlock the reason why one or both of them is marked for death. For beneath the intrigue lies a dark conspiracy that stretches halfway around the world - and a sinister plot that could change the course of history."--BOOK JACKET.Synopsis
"[It] is one of the few science-mysteries I have read that is impeccable in plot, immaculate in story resolution, and moves with high skill from locale to locale and from suspense to suspense. What a very good, virtuoso read."
-Norman Mailer on The Genesis Code
A promising research fellow for a venerable think tank in Zurich is forced into a grisly experiment...A seductive young woman coolly sharpshoots an old man in a wheelchair as he basks in the late afternoon sun...A psychologist who helps patients confront past trauma battles his own silent demons...In THE SYNDROME, John Case combines these intriguing elements into a pulse-pounding, mind-twisting new thriller.
Dr. Jeff Duran suffers from severe panic attacks when he ventures too far outside his home office. And he is inexplicably haunted by mysterious memories, and phrases of a foreign language he never learned. Then, after a patient tormented by "recovered" memories commits suicide - and her half-sister, Adrienne Cope, blames Duran - his life spirals out of control.
Suddenly targeted by unknown assassins, he and Adrienne must run for their very lives. Forced to trust each other, they must now work together to unlock the reason why one or both of them is marked for death. For beneath the intrigue lies a dark conspiracy that stretches halfway around the world - and a sinister plot that could change the course of history.
A relentlessly paced thriller in which nothing is what it seems, no one can be trusted, and nothing is secure - especially one's own memories - THE SYNDROME is a chillingly, brilliantly conceived novel from a proven master of suspense.
Publishers Weekly
The always intriguing Case (The Genesis Code; The First Horseman) poses another troubling question for the ages in his latest biospeculative thriller. Just what happened to the U.S. government's secret mind-control experiments of the 1960s? In this diverting fictional juggernaut, a shadowy private enterprise, the Prudhomme Clinic, took over where the government left off. It is now kidnapping people, wiping their memories clean and turning them into assassins who target international leaders whom the Prudhomme believes are destabilizing world order. The whole operation, however, is jeopardized when one recreated human, Jeff Duran, manages to break the spell and start questioning who he is, and more importantly, who he was before a computer chip was implanted in his brain. He teams up in his quest with Adrienne Cope, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who has been baffled by the suicide of her sister, who, unbeknownst to Adrienne, was one of the Prudhomme's most skilled killers. Soon after the two begin poking around, they find their lives are in peril. They begin a frantic search for information, dodging attempts on their lives and making one bone-chilling discovery after another. They ultimately find themselves rushing off to Switzerland not only to confront the Prudhomme's leader, but to save the life of Nelson Mandela, who has been targeted for assassination. Explanations of the history and techniques of mind-control experiments as well as the psychology of amnesia add a realistic overlay to what otherwise might have been a fairly formulaic thriller. Case, revealed here for the first time to be the husband-and-wife writing team of Jim and Carolyn Hougan of Virginia, shows the sort of sure-handed storytelling that made their first two books such hot sellers. National ad campaign; author appearances in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. (May 1) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewIn the follow-up to his bestselling novel The Genesis Code, John Case takes on neurological tampering, programmed assassination, and the erasure of identity. Part medical thriller and part on-the-run action adventure tale, The Syndrome is fueled with high emotion and resonates with moral ambiguity. The author skillfully fuses controversial issues of psychology with a muscular plotline of technology gone awry.
Dr. Jeffrey Duran is an enigma even to himself. The psychologist lives in a high-priced apartment building even though he only has two patients, suffers from agoraphobia that leaves him unable to face the rest of the world, and has peculiar memories of a life he never lived. When one of his mysterious patients, Nico -- who swears she's been hideously abused since childhood by a group of Satanists -- commits suicide, Duran is left in an ethical vacuum, unsure of who he is or what role he played in her death.
Nico's half sister, Adrienne Cope, immediately suspects that Duran is the cause of her sister's suicide. Adrienne knows that Nico was never molested, and she believes that Duran implanted false memories in Nico for some unknown reason. She hires a P.I. to investigate Duran and soon learns that nothing about the man is true: not where he grew up, not where he attended medical school, not even his name. When she confronts him with these facts, Duran is as much at a loss as Adrienne. Before long the two are set upon by assassins and forced to go on the run together until they discover who Duran truly is, why his mind was tampered with, and what deadly assignments he carried out.
"John Case" is the pseudonym for the husband-and-wife team Jim and Carolyn Hougan. The authors know how to create a chilling atmosphere that leaves the reader mystified but intrigued, wondering what the next revelation will be. The bizarre scenes of Duran giving his patients "therapy" are genuinely creepy, disclosing just enough about the unusual plot to keep us turning pages to find out more. The novel is propelled by the enigmatic situations layered one on top of the other, nurturing the suspense to razor sharpness. The narrative passes by at high speed while the mystery grows ever more complex and twisted. The Syndrome engages the senses, keeping to a perfect blend of reality and science fiction and allowing for a believable story that never falls into stock circumstances.
Case again proves capable of turning out not only a compelling thriller, but also an inventive story that transcends the biotech suspense genre and works as a convincing novel that will leave the reader awestruck and praying this is only fiction. (Tom Piccirilli)
Tom Piccirilli is the author of eight novels, including Hexes and Shards, and his Felicity Grove mystery series, consisting of The Dead Past and Sorrow's Crown. He has sold more than 100 stories to the anthologies Future Crimes, Bad News, The Conspiracy Files, and Best of the American West II. An omnibus collection of 40 stories titled Deep into That Darkness Peering is also available. Tom divides his time between New York City and Estes Park, Colorado.