Mirage (Hardcover)

by Don Passman (Author) "The patient known as Oliver was in the final stages..." (more)
Key Phrases: chess tournament, mercury switch, Los Angeles, Jill Landis, Salt Lake City (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Following his well-received 1999 debut, The Visionary, attorney-cum-novelist Don Passman returns with Mirage, a mind-control, techno-psycho thriller with overtones of Richard Condon's 1959 cold-war masterpiece, The Manchurian Candidate--hold the war, hold the masterpiece, but hold that thought.

John Berger is the CEO of a burgeoning cyber-encryption firm. He's seeing an attractive woman, his dog thinks he's god, and he's just passed an enjoyable weekend at an L.A. chess tourney. Only there was no tourney, he's hearing voices, and a bomb hidden in his desk has devastated his office building and two people in it. Plus, his girlfriend's missing. That's Sunday.

On Monday morning, in Orlando, kindly Mr. Simms tools into work and calmly detonates a pipe bomb. In Washington, an alert FBI agent senses a connection between the two explosions and puts it to Carl Davidson, head of the Domestic Terrorism Unit:

"I have a hunch there's something here. At least enough to look over the local's shoulders."

Davidson buttoned his tan raincoat and tied the waist belt in a knot. He turned up the collar, then drilled his eyes into Weldon.

"All right. Don't spend a lot of time. And for God's sake, don't put anyone important on it."

Enter agent Jill Landis, young and widowed, followed by other recognizable characters: Combs, the megalomaniacal director of Mirage, a shot-down, top-secret government mind-control experiment; "Charlie," the Serbian über-terrorist; Berger's comic Jewish mother; an alluringly macho cult specialist, et al. The plot thickens, love blooms in unforeseen places, and a clock is raced to save America from a nightmarish terrorist attack.

If Mirage sounds formulaic, it is. It's also highly readable, humorous, cleverly put together, and largely well-written. A masterpiece it's not; fun to read it is. Passman is, no doubt, a whiz-bang lawyer; if his first two efforts at fiction are any indication, he may become a whiz-bang novelist as well. --Michael Hudson

From Publishers Weekly
The unlikely hero of Passman's second thriller (after The Visionary) is a ponytailed couch potato named John Berger, a computer cryptographer with a Stanford Ph.D. On his way to work at EXC Labs in Los Angeles on a Monday morning, Berger is stopped by a guard who informs him that EXC was blown up over the weekend. As the week wears on, things only get stranger. Interrogated by the FBI, Berger discovers that the bomb was planted in his own desk. And his alibiAhe attended what he thought was a chess tournamentAis blown out of the water when the FBI discovers there was no real tournament that weekend. Confused and distressed, Berger tries to piece together what might have happened and prove his innocence, with the assistance of Florida FBI agent Jill Landis, who spots a pattern after a similar bombing brings down a building in Orlando. It soon becomes clear that Berger was hypnotized the weekend of the bombing, but under whose direction? The key to the mystery lies in a secret project called Mirage, once funded by the U.S. government and shut down three years before. The project's director, Kenneth Combs, frustrated and bitter, is now in cahoots with a ring of international terrorists, and he is desperate to silence Berger, who was supposed to die in the EXC explosion. To make matters worse, Berger is hearing strange voices in his head that he must muffle if he is to save himself and the thousands of other people Combs's associates plan to eliminate. Berger is no James BondAlacking in muscle tone, he's also a "lousy liar, and not a particularly good actor" but Landis somehow falls in love with him anyway. Short on elaborate plotting and high-level suspense, Passman's latest does possess a quirky charm. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 325 pages
• Publisher: Warner Books (October 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446527246
• ISBN-13: 978-0446527248
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,922,901 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Big Disappointment, September 26, 2002

By	T. Judd "booknut" (ALEXANDRIA, VA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

So far, Mirage has an average rating of four stars. I must respectfully dissent: Mirage is a big disappointment, especially when Passman's first book, The Visionary, was so good. The plot revolves an army experiment in mind control; when it is shut down many of those men involved in it have no place to go but into the shadow world of terrorism where their skills can find a market. One of the first victims is computer specialist John Bergman. Here the story begins to weaken, as beyond Bergman the cast of characters is cartoonish, even silly - with one exception which I dare not reveal. Between the interesting beginning and the non- surprise ending, the book careens from pillar to post with the good guys acting like Keystone Kops and the bad guys like the Three Stooges. What is really scary is that the FBI field agents' relationship with Washington reads like the Congressional hearings we are witnessing now.

Jill Landis, the lead agent in the field on this case does show some strengths. But like Bergman, who seems to wear a name tag that says "Geek", she wears one saying "Vulnerable". One character worth watching is the mind-control specialist Landis consults. Trying to figure him out is a useful distraction if you are determined to get through the book. I should also mention that there are a couple of scenes of gratuitous violence which added nothing to the story but were a sledge hammer to a nail in trying to move the story along.

The mind control/terrorism plot with its Manchurian Candidate twist was a great idea. Unfortunately it really doesn't go anywhere. I'm willing to bet that Mr. Passman has some more good writing in him. It just doesn't show in Mirage.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars MIND CONTROL WITH DEADLY CONSEQUENCES, March 29, 2001

By	Kenri A. Mugleston (Orange, Texas United States) - See all my reviews

This is a very fast paced and excellent thriller. John Berger is a struggling computer encryption specialist on the verge of a breakthrough on the program he has been working on. One morning he goes to work only to find out that his office and building have been blown up. Everything starts to unravel at this point. His girlfriend Linda who was about to break up with him is missing, his job is on hold until the company rebuilds, he has no money, the FBI has him on their list of suspects for the bombing and the chess tournament he thought he went to over the weekend never happened.

John starts to think that he is going crazy. He starts to hear voices in his head and starts having attacks of extreme anger.

In Orlando, Florida a Mr. Simms goes to work one day and blows up his place of business as well as all but one co-worker. Are the two bombings connected? The FBI sends out agent Jill Landis to investigate the bombings as well as John Berger.

This book was very enjoyable and portrayed some ideas about mind control that are very shocking. Can these things happen? Probably. Are they already happening? I sincerely hope not.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book, Recommend it!, January 3, 2001

By	John (Los) - See all my reviews

I just read Mirage by Don Passman and it was a great read. It's about a brilliant computer cryptographer who is the unwitting victim of a brainwashing project, as the FBI engages a cult deprogrammer/mind control specialist to unlock what's in his mind. The book is a real page-turner which I definitely recommend. ...