Review: Amortals

by Matt Forbeck

Angry Robot, out now

Ronan Dooley has only one job to do: find the man who killed him…

Set in a world where, if you’ve got enough money, you can be brought back from the dead in a new body, complete with all your memories, Matt Forbeck’s fast-paced action adventure starts with secret service agent Dooley watching his own murder. And of course in a world where if you die, your carbon copy replaces you, is anyone really who they seem to be – even Dooley himself?

As the agent battles bureaucracy, Indian gangs and his apparent friends to find the killer, Forbeck deftly deals with the philosophical implications of the society he’s functioning within while keeping the reader thrilled with a detective story and chase whose end you may well not see coming.

There’s a lot of clever plotting and writing in this book, with the various clues to what’s going are doled out to reader and protagonist at the same time. There’s a certain amount of technobabble, inevitably, but it never overwhelms the reader and while certain plot twists will be familiar to cinema goers, it’s how they’re put together that makes the difference.

Verdict: A highly enjoyable technothriller.  8/10

Paul Simpson

Watch out for our review of Matt Forbeck’s second Angry Robot novel, Vegas Knights, coming soon