Customer Reviews

Mute

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I finished reading 'Mute' four days ago, and have since started another. Yet I still can't get it out of my mind. Maybe it's because I simply don't want to.

A few things make this book so good:

1) Thematic elements that are current and unique. Mad cow, tsunamis, and terrorism are top of mind, and this story puts a new spin on all of them. There's another even hotter topic I won't mention that's key to the story - but it's a surprise!

2) Characters. I have family in parts of Scotland, and Dr. Duncan Henderson is a true-to-form Glaswegian. Kat Francis and Zaina Marikar are drawn with such realism you could touch them. They sure touched ME.

3) Suspense. This book frayed my nerves to tatters - and I clamped on to it tight. I'd finally put it down, and then pick it back up half a minute later.

4) I learned a lot about prion diseases, Islam, and geography among many other things, and it didn't hurt a bit. This author has a gift for imparting solid info without compromising the action.

5) Brilliant ending. No loose ends. I was shocked right out of my socks, yet oh, so satisfied. How often does that happen?

Brad Steel, you rocked my world. Hit me again, baby!

I visited this page three times before breaking down and buying the book.... and I am glad I did. It's the first novel I have read since I finished up "The Da Vinci Code" almost a year ago. I enjoyed that particular story, but did not appreciate the way Dan Brown made up his own facts as he went along. It insulted what a lot of people believe in, myself included.

"Mute" is similar only in that it presents a huge amount of information as an intriguing story speeds along. The difference is that this time the facts are real. Most reviewers have written on and on about how good the dialogue and characters are, and I don't disagree.

What nobody has said a lot about is how much of "Mute" is true.

I am out of the business now, but I spent 23 years in the cattle industry and I can now speak my mind. I have believed for some time that there was a link between the cattle mutilations that happen regularly and government surveillance of diseases like mad cow and chronic wasting disease. "Mute" is fiction in story, but what is said about this linkage is true. I will swear it on my deathbed. The way Brad Steel describes mutilated cows is EXACTLY what I have seen, on my own ranch and others. People think it's just a bunch of hoaxes like crop circles, but nobody I know would do stuff like that to his own animals. It makes you sick to see it happen. Even if a rancher had some crazy reason to, he would not have the technology to do the things I have seen.

So go ahead and buy, and do enjoy a story well told. Enjoy the characters, and have fun being surprised again and again.

All I'm saying is do not comfort yourself by thinking it's all not true....

It doesn't take me long to burn through a book, and I don't waste much time on ones that aren't any good. I bought Mute four days ago on a business trip after I spotted legal thriller ace John Lescroart's praise on the front cover, and scanned the flap copy. It sounded compelling and original. I cracked it open on the plane that night, and finished my second full read of it by lunchtime today.

Brad Steel is, as Lescroart's words suggest, a master of voice. It appears this is Steel's first novel - I can't find any other titles - yet he has a clipped, no-nonsense style that kicks the guts out of veterans like Tom Clancy. (Especially Clancy's recent books: The Teeth of the Tiger could have benefited immensely from TC having a tete-a-tete with Mr. Steel!) Much of Mute is narrated by Steel's protagonist, a young woman named Kat Francis. Now, I understand women quite well - but I'll admit not as well as Steel does. More than once, I caught myself glancing at the author photo. If not for the stylistic harmony with the rest of the book, I would SWEAR Kat's character to be the creation of a female writer. It's just that solid.

I challenge anyone to guess where this storyline is going from one chapter to the next, especially nearing the end. It won't darned well happen. In popular fiction, I can almost always anticipate the ending, and can all too regularly predict many impending plot devices as well. I'm tempted to tell you about a few of the curveballs Steel throws, but I won't. Pick it up, and see for yourself. If you find yourself disappointed, perhaps you ought to give up reading fiction for a while. And if you don't learn a few new and worthwhile things from this, quit reading entirely. You must know too much!

This is one hell of a good book. Write on, Mr. Steel...

Mute is divided into three sections, each signaling a transition in the story. In Section I, the prologue introduces a Scottish neuropathologist named Duncan Henderson. He is called away to the lab in the middle of the night, and the reader is left knowing that something very ominous is lurking behind the scenes. Then chapter one begins the narration by veterinarian Kat Francis, who is still stinging from a the successive deaths of two loved ones and her new divorcee status.

Kat is thrown literally off her feet when a mysterious envelope containing photos of mutilated cattle appears, addressed to her. She puts this aside to go off on a much needed vacation, cut short by what seems no more than a freak accident. She returns to find her house and clinic in shambles, and the cow photos absent. She vows to get to the bottom of this, and soon finds herself in cattle country, meeting with unexpected opposition from everyone she runs into.

In Section II, we reencounter Dr. Henderson, now up to his neck in alligators. We learn he has been recruited by a secret government agency that monitors mad cow disease, carving up cattle by night to analyze the input and output organs in an underground lab and screen for pathogens known as "prions." The reader is treated to a complete autopsy in possibly a bit more detail than I would have liked, complete with the scents and textures of various human tissues. Ew.

Henderson discovers that his mad cow research is not being used in the benign way he had been led to believe, to help people dying from Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease. Instead, via mutant pathogens, a plan is underway to halt Islamist terrorism at the expense of many, many innocent lives. Henderson badly wants out, but it seems the only way requires lying on a stainless steel morgue slab.

Meanwhile, Kat Francis is busy running away from police and corrupt doctors, and has managed to send stolen human remains to a lab friend for DNA analysis - and sneak into a hospital library to gather medical intelligence. With remarkable efficiency she closes in on a secret that multiple governments have kept hidden from the entire world. Yet this is done in a way that seems quite well thought-out and believable.

Kat also has time for an impromptu romance, and seems to fall in love a little too quickly considering all she has been through (and continues to go through!)

The villains may be too purely evil, though one in particular is sufficiently quirky and eccentric that I would have liked to know more about him.

Overall, this is a very good book. It is timely and unique, joining together topics that are still on the front pages of our newspapers in ways other authors may never have thought of. The story did seem a bit disjointed in parts, though some of these made more sense when I reached the end. At least three of the characters hold spinoff promise for future books, and I can easily see the film potential of Mute. Brad Steel is a talented new writer, who appears to naturally come at storytelling from a fresh and pleasant vantage point. I think that is at the heart of why people like this book so much. His rendering of female characters and the way they interact is something that I think would be lost on most men, and I still wonder how a male author nailed these so well. This book may not be perfect in every way, but it is very well written, moves quickly, charms, thrills, tickles, and has plenty of spirit. Its greatest fallback may be that it tries just a little too hard. But really, how bad a thing is that?

Mute definitely goes on my "recommended" list.

It's always a good sign when you finish reading a book and you can't imagine starting the next one. I can't stop thinking about the story and the characters that have left an indelible mark on my life.
Brad Steel is the world's newest master storyteller, as "Mute" is full of intrigue, mystery and was obviously intricately researched.
I found myself proud to be Canadian as I learned great things about our landscape and people. Mr. Steel has found a unique way of subtlety teaching you something while keeping you engrossed in the story.
To say that this is a page-turner is an understatement. I found myself drinking tea late at night to keep reading, and thinking endlessly about the story until the next time I could get back to it.
Throughout, he keeps you guessing and the story takes so many twists and turns that you could never imagine how it would turn out.
I can honestly say that I can not wait until his next book comes out and I will be the first to line up for it!

I honestly can't remember the last time I enjoyed a book as much as I did Mute.

The character development was excellent, brought out through realistic dialogue and believable, genuine feeling behaviors. Tension was ratcheted up just the way I like it, keeping me eagerly flipping pages without feeling like my buttons were being pushed or being left with the sour taste of dread from too many false alarms. Throughout, I was intrigued, and Steel kept me on the edge of my seat. My reading sessions were much, much longer than usual.

I especially enjoyed the unusual use of person and tense. It can't be easy for an author to write a book using so much first person present, yet it read so naturally I didn't notice until I was several chapters in. Well done.

Most all fiction these days seems to be set in America, or on occasion in Europe. I really enjoyed the Canadian setting. In my opinion, this is something that made Mute more valuable to me. I never really wanted to visit Canada until now.

This is also one of the few books I've read that has no boring parts to speak of. Once or twice, I felt the action slowing a little bit, and then, as if the author knew what I was thinking, it shifted gears and grabbed me even tighter.

I'll watch for more by Brad Steel. I can't imagine giving Mute any less than the highest rating.

*****
Patrick Walsh

What a great book! I found myself going back and re-reading certain parts afterwards, not just to understand better but to enjoy them again.

The characters are great and realistic, especially Kat Francis. Very likeable, which makes you feel for her and want her to succeed, and survive.

I will definitely recommend this book. It scared me at times, excited me at others, made me laugh out loud, and the ending left me feeling sooo good!

Everyone has his or her own way of judging a book. I have a very short attention span, so if I actually finish one it deserves two, maybe three stars straight away. I'm not easy; to the contrary. It's very hard to sustain my interest. If a book engages me so I keep reading with my husband calling me to bed and a busy day ahead, that clinches a fourth star.

It's rare that a novel (or any book) can keep me hooked for four hundred pages. To achieve this, Brad Steel introduces some highly intriguing and likeable characters early, saddles them with unique predicaments, and then makes sure not to let any of them spin their wheels for long, or spend undue time pondering every mundane detail of their life, spirituality, sexuality, morality, and so on. Most people probably skim such pages, but that's when I put a book down, often for good.

Another thing this novel does well is to stay unpredictable, without becoming illogical. A lot of novelists create plot twists by taking the story down ridiculously improbable roads. Although MUTE is as tumultuous as a mountain logging trail, you don't see it coming - but every time an unforeseen turn hits, it fits. Sometimes not immediately, but eventually it all falls in to place.

When I close a book with a giant smile on my lips and a tear in my eye after reaching that last page, still wanting more, I know it's a winner. Hence, the fifth star.

after reading as much of mute online as amazon would let me, i just had to buy it. to my delight it turned out to be even better than expected. page after page flew by, and i ended up reading the whole thing in a few long sittings.

this really is an excellent, thrilling, educational novel, the kind with characters you'll never forget and wish you could keep following after the nonstop action draws to a close. i am studying animal health and found the veterinary related details in mute to be highly accurate, which makes them consistent with the rest of this book. read mute, and i think you will give it the highest rating too!! i want to read more by this author.

I started reading the book on the plane to Quebec City. The 4 hour plane ride seemed to take 20 minutes. I was very upset that I had to get off the plane rather than sit there and finish the last 140 pages! My back hurt and my shoulders were sore from sitting on the edge of my seat and wavering back and forth from emphathizing with the "good" characters and hating the "evil" ones. Just as I thought,"Oh, great! The good is triumphing over the evil." That damned evil raised its ugly head again and seemed to get the upper hand. The ending was satisfying but WOW! was it surprising! I need to meet someone in Edmonton who has also read the book so I can debrief. I became totally absorbed in the story. I have ordered Brad's next book - I hope I can survive reading these books. They are so good they hurt!!