As a child I had a wish of a photographic memory. Oh my pleasure when a teacher had said that maybe I had! Read/see something once and remember it all your life. No revisions, no studying before exams, no homework - just reading in class enough!! But then as I grew up, I realised what a curse it was. No, I do not have one but certain moments tend to get indelibly imprinted on your brain, which I cannot seem to shake off no matter how much I try. There are instances you want to forget - a bad boo boo you did, a moment of personal shame, a sweet memory that now cuts you to the core. But then one realises that there are no pros without cons.
Memory Man by David Baldacci is the story of one such man. Amos Decker, a hyperthymesiac following a hit in which he died twice and came back is reeling under the memory of murders of his family. He starts to put his life back together when more than one and half year later his town is venue to a mass shooting, which is just the first link in a series of murders. As the bodies keep on piling, the killer makes it more than clear that it is a personal vendetta against the man who forgets nothing but can't remember what he did wrong.
Sometimes, we utter things that seemingly innocuous might wreak havoc to somebody else and there are no depths to which a twisted mind will not sink. Memory Man is a page turner with a pace that never slackens. The layered approach taken ensures that the reader is hooked.
However what disappointed me was the climax. It rose and fell and too fast and absolutely failed to do justice to the build-up before it. It sort of finished even before I realised it had started. The methodical approach, the expansive setting up of the scene followed previously - something was amiss, badly amiss. It was as if the writer realised at the last moment that the book is becoming too long, I need to shorten it.
So what is it? A three? Too less. A 4? Too much, the climax was weak. It can well be 3.5/5 but not more than that.
But then, this is my judgement. What is yours?
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