Conclusion

September 1, 2019
The always-interesting Robertson?Permafrost (2012), Mission (2013), Colorblind (2016)?sets his latest novel in the near future. New technologies have enabled people to attain perfect health, to halt the very processes of aging?but at a cost. It's not a permanent thing: 20 years after one undergoes the revolutionary new body-cleansing procedure, the body shuts down completely. Colin Tugdale is in the last year of his allotted 20; his own impending death doesn't frighten him. What does puzzle him, though, is why people who should be dead are apparently still alive, and how a woman was able to cure herself of an incurable affliction. Robertson's previous three novels were mainstream mysteries, although they were distinctly and compellingly untraditional in their flavor and tone. This book, too, is in essence a mystery, but its sf trappings give it an intriguing genre-blending appeal. The novel delivers a fascinating exploration of an intriguing question: When death becomes not only inevitable, but also something we can plan for years in advance, does it lose its power to terrify? Or, alternatively, does the known end date carry its own kind of terror? A smart and expertly written story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)