Delirious by Daniel Palmer (Guest Review and Giveaway)

Delirious by Daniel Palmer

Release date: January 25

Guest Review*

My Thoughts:

I have mentioned by good friend Cheryl in several posts since starting this blog. We have known each other for going on 10 years now. We met each other as booksellers at a bookstore in Uptown Minneapolis. Our friendship began over a massive love of books and our ability to talk about them for hours! We were roommates for a time and enjoyed sitting in our hallway where our bookshelves were talking about books until the wee hours of the night. She was one of the friends of mine that went with me to BEA!

She has since moved away from Minneapolis and is currently living in Atlanta as a Project Archivist. She is super smart and great at what she does. She has truly found her calling, in my eyes. I am always excited to see her when she visits me back here at home. We do a regular sushi and wine dinner and then browse the local bookstores. Super predictable, nerdy and oh so much fun.

I was getting a ton of requests for books that I honestly did not have time to read so I asked her if she would be interested in doing a Guest review. She said sure right away. She is also a huge fan of mysteries and I thought this one would be a good fit for her. Hope you guys enjoy a new voice in reviews here at Red Headed Book Child. I know she will stop by again!

Cheryl's Thoughts:

I was very happy when Michelle asked me to do guest reviews for her blog. As one often mentioned in her posts, I’m excited to actively participate. My first review is an ARC of Delirious by Daniel Palmer, the son of medical thriller author Michael Palmer.

Description of Delirious from Daniel Palmer’s website www.danielpalmerbooks.com

“Charlie Giles is at the top of his game. An electronics superstar, he’s sold his startup company to a giant Boston firm, where he’s now a senior director. With his dog, Monte, at his side, Charlie is treated like a VIP everywhere he goes.

Then one day, everything in Charlie’s neatly ordered world starts to go terrifyingly wrong. His prestigious job and his inventions are wrenched away from him. His family is targeted, and his former employers are dying gruesomely, picked off one by one. Every sign, every shred of evidence, points to Charlie as a cold-blooded killer. And soon Charlie is unable to tell whether he’s succumbed to the pressures of work and become the architect of his own destruction, or whether he’s the victim of a relentless, diabolical attack.

In a desperate struggle to save his life, Charlie races to uncover the truth, all the while realizing that nothing can be trusted—least of all his own fractured mind…”

A blurb on the ARC also describes it as “a spiraling psychological thrill-ride filled with intrigue, questions and deception – a techno-savvy novel, with shocking twists that will mesmerize readers from start to finish.”

Raised by a single mother with a schizophrenic father and brother, Charlie’s biggest fear is being schizophrenic. Palmer deftly weaves this childhood psychological trauma with Charlie’s adult fear while Charlie’s world turns upside down for reasons he cannot figure out. It starts when he finds a sticky note on his laptop screen that says, in his own handwriting, “If not yourself, then who can you believe?” with absolutely no recollection of writing it. As things continue to spiral out of Charlie’s control, he returns to this question again and again as he tries to figure out whether he is unconsciously destroying himself or someone is out to get him. Palmer excels by offering no obvious solutions to the incidents that make Charlie question his sanity in a believable way.

Described as “techno-savvy novel,” I expected a using-technology-to-solve-a-crime thriller, which it is not and initially disappointed me. However, after I finished reading and thought about it for a while, I prefer that Palmer chose to not use his novel as a way to show off or describe the latest or future of technology, but instead of a more subtle approach of how dependent we are on it while simultaneously how much it can control our lives. He effectively explained and integrated the products and ideas into the story and combined with the “psychological thrill-ride,” I was hooked and read it in only a few days.

What is also fun is that Palmer created a blog about the company and its founders from his book, sort of as a prequel: http://www.danielpalmerbooks.com/invision-blog/. As it has virtually no impact on the story, it is not necessary to read it before reading the book. I read it after and found it amusing.

As an avid thriller reader, what I expect is to be entertained, which Palmer delivered. Well-written and compelling, I read the book nearly all the way through with no idea how it would end, which is what I want from a good thriller. I especially liked the numerous twists and turns that I could not figure out how and why they occurred.

My only criticism, which I should emphasize did not detract from the story and are mostly indicative that it was Palmer’s first novel, are that the characters were a bit undeveloped, dialogue a bit choppy, and bits of the story redundant as he continually reminded readers of certain incidents. I fully expect that as Palmer continues to write, these minor aspects will improve greatly and turn him into an excellent thriller and suspense writer.

I enjoy reading new authors and I am glad I found him at the beginning of his career and I will look to Daniel Palmer for entertaining thrillers in the future.

Sites of Interest:

Download a free copy of Daniel's album “Home Sweet Home” at http://bit.ly/fW6SN3

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/danielpalmerbooks

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/danielpalmer

Website: http://www.danielpalmerbooks.com

GIVEAWAY rules:

*Please be a follower of my blog.

*Please include an email address.

*Please live in the United States.

Winner will be picked on February 8.

Thanks again Cheryl! I'm so glad you enjoyed this one!

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child