Red Devil 4 is a techo-medical thriller written by Eric C. Leuthardt, a top neurosurgeon and a pioneer in neuroprosthetics (brain-computer interfaces). One of the most prolific inventors with over 800 patents granted or pending, and now, bestselling novelist about a terrifying computer virus that infects neural implants.
I should say first off I thought this was terrible. The writing was unbelievably bad considering Leuthardt must have had a team of people looking out for him. It has received good reviews online and from prominent authors, but it was so bad it was difficult to read.
This is a negative review.
Taking place in the near future, where almost everyone has a neural implant to conduct daily life (think internal internet complete with video chats), three separate incidents happen where people turn berserk and murderous. Enter the crusty curmudgeon police detective (picture a technophobe like Columbo) and his female partner, described "hot and smart, but what a pain in the ass". Yes, she is whipsmart, and is so beautiful she makes the guys stand around and stare. Either that, or when she interjects an opinion, she's told to "Whoa, hold on there, Tiger". (It's difficult to work around women, right?) Hard to believe his characters were written in 2015, not to mention this is supposed to be in the future.
Enter the neuroscientist/artificial intelligence researcher to help make sense of it all. Dr. Maerici is the character that gets to spout all the neuroscience jargon to the reader (and the detectives), blended into conversations as part of the story. When it goes into the theories of future prosthetics and implants, it is very interesting - but the way it set within a lame mystery thriller does it a disservice. A prominent billionaire, a leader in the community with a disabled son is one of the cases, another is a ruthless nano-drug dealer, and the other a gay florist (another badly written character).
They track down the source of it all but by that point the writing was so bad I just wanted out. One of the reviews online says he is a "veteran scientist but rookie novelist, and it shows a little". For me, reading about a technofuture where they have needless sexism, homophobia, and quote old TV shows like The Odd Couple, immediately takes me out of the story.
I was looking forward to it, so disappointing! All I can say is - he did actually write a book, and it got published, so I'm happy for him. I wish him well, but this was so badly written it was a tough go, without reward - except it's over.
One of the few stinkers I've read in a long time.
2014 / Paperback / 483 pages
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