Author: Jack McDevitt
Cover Artist: John Harris
Publisher: Ace Books
Binding: Hardback
Publication Date: November 2008

Jack McDevitt is back in fine fashion with The Devil’s Eye, the fourth novel in his Alex Benedict series.  Horror author Vicki Greene has had her mind wiped, and it is up to Alex Benedict and his steadfast employee Chase Kolpath to find out who did it and why.  The novel, like all of the novels in this sereis, is narrated in the first person by Chase, who is sort of the Watson (albeit a more intelligent version of one) to Alex’s Sherlock Holmes.  Apart from assisting her employer in the antiquities business, Chase also chaffeurs him around, piloting his skimmer (spaceship) on their many adventures.

Why should the job of discovering what happened to Vicki Greene fall to an antiquities dealer, and not to, say, the police?  The two million she’s had credited to their account is a major factor, but also it’s because Alex Benedict is a fan of her writing.  Though the two have never meet, for some reason she has (through a holographic avatar) sent him a haunting message while he and Chase are traveling back to Rimway:

“I’m in over my head, Mr. Benedict.” She was staring at him. Her turn to be terrified.  God help me, they’re all dead.”

Something happened to her while she was on a year-long vacation to Salud Afar, “easily the most remote human world, thirty-one thousand light-years beyond Rimway.”  She either experienced or saw something that she wasn’t supposed to, and someone didn’t want anyone else to know.  Before she voluntarily agreed to have her mind wiped  at the St. Thomas Psychiatric care-center after coming back to Rimway, she had a lineal block performed illegally on her.  Alex learns from her psychiatrist Clement Obermaier that lineal blocks are: ”used with psychotic patients.  Or with those who have extreme emotional problems.”

It’s similar to a mind wipe, but works on only individual memories, or a set of memories, and prevents “the patient from acting on them.“  Whoever performed one on her did it to stop her from revealing whatever it was she found out.  Later, Vicki requested that all of her memories be “extracted” by using a mind wipe because she was having problems dealing with the lineal blockage, and the doctor who did the mind wipe believed if he hadn’t have done one, “she might have committed suicide.”

Though Alex and Chase are just recently back from visiting Atlantis on Earth, they disembark again to Salud Afar to try to uncover the mystery about what Vicki could have learned or seen that would lead to her wanting her mind wiped.  She is not dead, but a shell of herself - other memories will be implanted into her, making her, in essence, a completely different person.  Alex and Chase, before leaving to Salud Afar, attend a memorial service for her, where her fans, friends, and relatives (like her brother Cory) can remember the person she once was and cherish their memories of her.  By going to Salud Afar, and contacting the people there who had known Vicki during her time there, Alex hopes to get closer to uncovering the mystery behind what would drive anyone to wanting to going to the extreme of getting her personality erased.

McDevitt creates a rich tapestry with his descriptions of the galaxies and planets Alex and Chase travel to.  For instance, one example is this description of Salud Afar:

Salud Afar orbits Moria, a quiet, stable class-G sun.  The planetary system at one time  is   believed to have possessed eight worlds, but the passage of an unknown dense object eleven thousand years ago scattered them.  Two worlds, Varesnikov and Naramitsu, were stripped of rings and moons, but left otherwise in place.  Sophora had been thrown a wildly irregular orbit, which brought it careening in and out of the inner system at centuries-long intervals.  Fortunately, it made for occasional spectacular views, but posed no threat to the human establishment on Salud Afar.  Miranda, a frozen terrestrial far from the sun, had, like Salud Afar, been unaffected by the event.  The remaining three had been ejected by the event.  The remaining three had been ejected and were adrift in the wind.

Also, the Belle-Marie’s AI (which reminded me of both Arthur C. Clarke’s most famous AI, HAL, from 2001: A Space Odessey, and the AI the Teacher, from Alan dean Foster’s Pip & Flinx series), further describes Salud Afar:

“There are,” said Belle, “eleven substantial landmasses, ranging from continents to islands with a minimum area of ninety thousand square kilometers.”

One of the aspects I liked most about The Devil’s Eye is McDevitt’s intermingling of humor with his story line.  Though most of the book is fairly serious and straightforward, humorous moments such as the following snippet (refering to Komalia, “a kind of corporate republic” on Salud Afar), which reminded me of television’s Futurama, aid the entertainment value greatly, while providing further information about the world of Salud Afar:

Komalia’s executive authority, the Administrstor, was Tau Kilgore, who also possessed some sort of senior status in the Coalition’s Executive Authority.  I [Chase] listened to a political show while looking out at the ocean. 

“He’s not the brightest guy in the world,” one panelist was saying.
“He means well,” said another.
And a third: “Everybody knows that, but he couldn’t find his way out of  a closet.”
“Doesn’t matter, though,” said the first panelist, a man with a deep voice, “he’s a  vast improvement over Betsy.”
I didn’t know who Betsy was.

The race of telepathic aliens, the Mutes, are a very original and integral part of the book.  They are described as resembling ”giant mantises”  in appearance: “but they are exremely tall, and their flesh has a husklike quality.  It’s leathery.  Old leather.  Leather that’s been oiled a bit too much.  Their faces are vaguely humanoid, with arched diamond eyes.  They have to struggle to produce anything resembling a human smile.  And, of course, a forced smile never works anyhow, especially when it’s disrupted by canines.”  Though Alex is friends with two of them, Selotta and Kassel, and gives Selotta a brick “from the Temple of Akiva” in Atlantis, Mutes and humans, in general, have a problem trusting each other.

The chapters are relatively short, a technique many authors use from Dan Brown to James Patterson, which aids in the fast-paced quality of the novel.  Each chapter begins with a quote from one of Vicki Greene’s horror books, which I felt was an effective and interesting touch.  The book has elements of a mystery novel, but set in the future.  I thought the blending of genres was handled well.  Fans of the Alex Benedict series of novels will not be disappointed by Jack McDevitt’s latest book, though it’s not a prerequisite to have read them or know anything about Alex and Chase to get into this book.

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Topics: ACE, Alex Benedict Series, Jack McDevitt, The Devil's Eye