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Charles Wilson is one of the hottest authors in publishing and with good reason. No one surpasses his genius for plotting or the tight prose he lays down in his thrillers. Wilson moves from strength to strength. Is it any wonder Game Plan is his strongest, most tension filled novel yet?

Embryo introduced some unsettling possibilities in a controversial area of science. Donor brought up the chilling potential for the misuse of medical research. Getting a degree of magnitude more frightening with each outing. Game Plan introduces the most terrifying threat of all.

The government wants to artificially improve human intelligence. The private sector wants that and the enormous profits that would go with any such advances. Either one is a dangerous enemy to make --  together they are almost invulnerable and omnipotent. Paranoia aside, have you ever thought how easy it would be to make someone disappear if you have the money and the power? Think about it now.

Things have hit the fan again in peaceful Mississippi. A doctor is murdered and his protegé is determined to find out the why and the who. Potentially, either question is enough to get him killed. Too bad that's not going to stop him. There's a deadly secret out there and Spence Stevens is willing to die to learn the truth, but dying isn't first choice on his list.

His search will lead him to a remote site in Montana where doctors implanted computer chips into the human brain. The experiment was a success. The recipients were some of the most violent criminals in the system. Their escape made them the most deadly weapons in the world.

Wilson's novels have always been suspenseful, but Game Plan goes far beyond that, creating a situation that is almost unbearably edgy. The villains this time are more and less than human. The chance of succeeding against them seems nonexistent. This is fear on a whole new scale.

Every element has come together seamlessly in Game Plan. It is the kind of book that keeps you insisting "just one more page... just to the end of this chapter..." until you come to the final page and realize it is past 3 am. And, it will be another hour until your heart slows down enough to even let you attempt sleep.

It's that scary and it's that good.

Remember, you don't have to believe in black helicopters and X-files to know that one person opposing the powers that be is, in all likelihood, a future corpse. Just weigh the benefits to the many against the loss of the few and you will see the potential for a little "creative" revision.

Read Game Plan and you may wonder if there is more going on than we know and how much is it worth to keep that knowledge secret?

In between reviews and interviews, Lisa DuMond writes science fiction and humour. DARKERS, her latest novel, will be published in early 2000 by Hard Shell Word Factory. She has also written for BOOKPAGE and PUBLISHERS WEEKLY. Her articles and short stories are all over the map. You can check out Lisa and her work at her website hikeeba!.