Reviver by Seth Patrick
Published by Pan MacMillan, June 2013
ISBN: 978 0 230 76501 6
408 pages
Review by Mark Yon
Reviver is a police procedural novel with an urban noir vibe. It’s also one of the best debuts I’ve read this year.
Jonah Miller is a Reviver: one of a few hundred globally who, by human touch, can communicate with the recently dead. When such evidence becomes admissible in court, Jonah’s talents become highly sort after.
As part of the US Forensic Revival Service, Jonah’s work is stressful and difficult. Burn-out rates amongst revivers are common. When Jonah revives the victim of a murder and is spoken to by ‘another’ presence, many think that it is time for Jonah to have a rest. He had a type of breakdown a couple of years before, and people are worried that he might be overdoing things.
However, when the original journalist who brought revivers to the public’s attention is found murdered, Jonah is brought in to assist on the high profile case. Initially it seems like some sort of revenge attack from the Afterlifers – one of the many groups who decried reviving as a blasphemy. However, Jonah and the victim’s daughter, Annabel, believe that some sort of cover-up is involved and they become determined to bring some long hidden truths to light, even though there are things out there amongst the living and the dead who seem determined to stop them.
Wow. I wasn’t expecting this one to be that good. But it draws you in from the rather visceral and very chilling first chapter. Reading like a TV series script (and admittedly, it would make a great TV series), the reader is soon getting to know Jonah, his soon-to-be-retiring boss, Sam Deering, Jonah’s reviver colleagues and his friends as he tries to uncover the big conspiracy. They develop into characters the reader is interested in and then concerned about, using the idea of ‘What-if?’ and applying it to the logical consequences within a contemporary time-frame. It’s fast, surprisingly accessible and easy to read, and was a difficult-to-put-down novel in the first thirty pages. Whilst the ideas aren’t that new, the way they’re written is engaging and exciting. Most of all, the majority of the decisions they make and the actions the characters take are sensible and logical, although it does go a little ‘action-hero’ at the end.
This one really worked for me. The set-up’s great, the characters are likeable and easily differentiated. Though we do drag in the odd cliché along the way, there’s enough new revelation as well to make the story work.
For fans of Fringe and Ben Aaronovitch’s Peter Grant / Rivers of London series, this has the pace of the CSITV series and the chilly even rather visceral tone of Thomas Harris’ Hannibal Lecter books and novels. For a debut novel, its style, tone and pace are surprisingly good.
Another great holiday read. I loved it.
Mark Yon, June 2013
