L.A. Mental

Starred review from August 15, 2011
McMahon’s stellar stand-alone offers a cunning technological twist worthy of the late Michael Crichton. In an ominous prologue, articles from three L.A. newspapers recount bizarre incidents: a judge goes berserk and does extensive damage to his Santa Monica house; a celebrity heiress accused of her elderly husband’s murder is found in a coma in the pool of her Beverly Hills condo; and a gifted CalTech grad student apparently commits suicide by running onto a freeway. Later, druggie Nick Crandall attacks his psychologist brother, Tom, in their old family home in Malibu after complaining that worms are eating his brain. Tom manages to save his brother’s life after Nick falls off a cliff, but the mystery only deepens when their sister, Rikki, reveals that she’s being threatened. All of this may somehow be connected with a brilliant physicist-turned-moviemaker, who’s using another Crandall property to film his next feature. McMahon (Dead Silver) easily makes a science fiction concept plausible in a pulse-pounding read that doesn’t sacrifice intelligence for thrills.

October 1, 2011
Seasoned mystery writer McMahon (Dead Silver, 2008, etc.) steps into a new genre with his first thriller. Tom Crandall, the scion of a wealthy Los Angeles family, takes a job teaching psychology at a community college. Tom also keeps an eye on his family's vast business and real-estate holdings, but much of his time goes into preventing his fractious family from throttling one another. It's his relationship with ne'er-do-well brother Nick that gets him and the rest of the Crandalls into hot water. Nick, a drug-addled 30-something surfer and competitive swimmer who has never made a go of anything but bad relationships, kicks off Tom's nightmare by calling his brother in the wee hours of the morning and drawing the unsuspecting Tom out to the site of the Crandall family's Malibu beach home, where Nick totters madly on a cliff before plunging over. After rescuing Nick from the chilly waters, Tom discovers that the incident is connected to recent activity involving his other brother, Paul, who oversees the Crandalls' business empire. Paul has become entangled with both an extramarital affair and a shadowy company that makes motion pictures. That company has rented the family lodge for use in an upcoming movie. Tom soon suspects there is more to the film company, the production and Paul's involvement than meets the eye. In the meantime, Tom meets a beautiful actress and discovers a sinister conspiracy involving nano-particles. He digs deeper into the situation only to find his entire belief system challenged, both by betrayals from the ones he loves and from the strange group of people who have entered his life. The writing is first-rate; McMahon can sling words with the best of them. But the weaving of science fiction into the story line is unsatisfying and the characters shallow. While the concept is certainly plausible, the plot is underdeveloped and spare, and the book falls short of being either convincing or compelling. The plot reads as if dashed off to meet a deadline, but the book is somewhat redeemed by decent writing.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

September 15, 2011
McMahon began his career with edgy thrillers set in Montana, then did a stint collaborating with James Patterson, and neither experience appears to have done him harm. His latest solo effort, like all good crime fiction, respects what Poe said 100-plus years ago: keep everything moving toward a single point. In a clear style with a strong pulse thrumming away underneath, McMahon tells the story of a sinister, mind-control cult preying upon the gorgeous and wealthy in a Southern California film colony. (How's that for a surefire mix of ingredients?) The hero, psychologist Tom Crandall, gets a midnight call from his troubled brother, who babbles Worms! before plunging off a cliff. McMahon artfully uses a gathering of the grieving and well-to-do clan to introduce another brother, who is involved with a film company headed by a discredited physicist. Thus, hero and reader are off on a fine ride. There's sex, murder, blackmail, and conspiracy, all made believable because they're seen through the eyes of the decent, down-to-earth hero, who is smarter and tougher than anyone realizes. A fine thriller.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)