Customer Reviews

The Double: An Investigation

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Don Webb's first novel The Double will come as no surprise to readers familiar with his huge output of short stories and essays, particularly for the highly regarded Fringeware Review magazine. There must be something in the water of Austin, Texas, because Webb's Vision is an unusual but strangely compelling one.

Webb's dialogue and plot structure is like something out of a David Lynch movie co-written by Robert Anton Wilson and Jack Sarfatti. There are some unusual twists on familiar themes from crime and occult mystery literature, and on what it is like to survive fin-de-siecle nervous breakdowns, dissociations, and fugue states.

Webb has obviously done both research and praxis of S&M, Memetics, and Optimal Psychology; methods for the alchemical processing of Humanity via Ordeals-of-Change; and creative excuses for handling editors via psychological warfare ("I woke up this morning, and there was a dead body in my room that looked exactly like me!").

A wyrd trip, but one definately worth taking.

Having been a fan of Don Webb's non-fiction work, I should not have been surprised at the gems found in this work of potent fiction. I firmly believe that even a sleepwalker has something to gain from reading this book. Start to finish, I literally couldn't put it down.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Read it, now. It came to me at a time when I needed it to. Things like that happen in the land of the mysterious. I look forward to more mysterious mysteries from Don Webb.

Don Webb is a fantasitic and prolific writer of speculative fiction. His first published novel, The Double: An Investigation, will not disappoint those familiar with his previous work. Those who are new to Webb's talent for reality bending will find themselves in for a literary joyride across terrain that is at once beautiful, strange, and sometimes grotesque. The only criticism that I have is that this story may well have been more effective as a novella. Other than that, it was a very engaging work.

In Austin, Texas, John Reynman wakes up one morning only to find a corpse lying on his living room floor. John is already puzzled as to how the victim ended up in his home, but is more shocked to realize that the murdered man is his identical twin....

The police receive mysterious visits that force them to prematurely end their investigation. However, the pressure on John by these same visitors fails to stop him from his quest of learning the truth. John begins his own investigation, not knowing where it will take him.

THE DOUBLE is a great mystery that will leave readers baffled with who is doing what to whom. The exciting story line is a fast-paced thriller that never slows down until the last page. Though there are several graphic sex scenes that seem unnecessary, readers can easily choose to skip them to peruse one of the year's weirdest yet most arousing novels. Don Webb spins a tale that deserves sequels, starring the delightful Reymann.

Harriet Klausner