Author: Ben H. Winters
Published: March 5, 2024 by Mulholland Books
Format: Kindle, 320 pages
Genre: Thriller
First Sentence: Wait a second, wait a second, wait a second,” Allie called from the back seat.
Blurb: Grace
The best part of Grace’s job at the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health is that she can clock out at five. She’s got things to do--like care for her aging, cantankerous mother, her angsty and remarkably bright teenager--with little time for herself to spare. Which is why Grace is peeved when in the late evening, she's called into work. A woman has appeared at a local hospital, injured, shaken, and with an unusual portacath implanted in her chest. The hospital cannot recognize the model. As Grace investigates, the scant info on the device's provenance appears apocryphal. What's been done to this girl? And who is behind it?
Ana
When she comes to, she realizes she’s been taken. She’s in the back seat of a black woozy, scared. She’d been asleep, and then she’d been awake, a woman with a catalog face, dressed in tailored pants and a crisp white blouse had dragged her out of her tent beneath the overpass and stabbed her in the neck. The same woman who was now in the front seat. Somehow, Ana escapes. When she arrives at a hospital in Hanover, Maryland, she’s found with an usual device attached to her body. Ana is confused, and as she tries to grasp for any memory or scrap of the past, she comes up empty. She can't remember anything.
Desiree
Desiree is on fire with pain, the pulp of her right eye a bloody mess. She can’t believe the girl had blinded her, can't believe that she’d escaped. Tending to the it had set her back. And now the client is not happy. What she needs is to fulfill the mission. Desiree has a job to do, and she is almost out of time. (GoodReads)
My Opinion: Having once read the Last Policeman series, I’ve been on the lookout for another Ben H. Winter novel that captured the same essence. Enter “Big Time”, a novel that tiptoes close to the edge of his previous works.
The journey begins with a slow burn, leaving readers in the dark about the book’s ultimate destination. But then, the last 20 percent erupts, shattering expectations and propelling the reader headlong into a gripping medical espionage thriller. It’s a race against time—a fitting theme, given what unfolds.
Stealing time is an intriguing and unsettling concept. Within this narrative, time isn’t merely a linear progression; it’s a commodity that could eventually be traded and bartered. The poor, desperate for immediate relief, could sell fragments of their existence. As the world hurtles toward what could be chaos, distinguishing between the good and the bad becomes an impossible task. Durational-element technology, once speculative, now shapes reality and reshapes our perception of time itself.
If I had my way, I’d sprinkle more medical thriller elements throughout the story, nurturing the seed of suspense from the outset. But even this minor quibble pales in comparison to the explosive finale. As the clock ticks down, the stakes soar, leaving the reader breathless.
Blurb: Grace
The best part of Grace’s job at the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health is that she can clock out at five. She’s got things to do--like care for her aging, cantankerous mother, her angsty and remarkably bright teenager--with little time for herself to spare. Which is why Grace is peeved when in the late evening, she's called into work. A woman has appeared at a local hospital, injured, shaken, and with an unusual portacath implanted in her chest. The hospital cannot recognize the model. As Grace investigates, the scant info on the device's provenance appears apocryphal. What's been done to this girl? And who is behind it?
Ana
When she comes to, she realizes she’s been taken. She’s in the back seat of a black woozy, scared. She’d been asleep, and then she’d been awake, a woman with a catalog face, dressed in tailored pants and a crisp white blouse had dragged her out of her tent beneath the overpass and stabbed her in the neck. The same woman who was now in the front seat. Somehow, Ana escapes. When she arrives at a hospital in Hanover, Maryland, she’s found with an usual device attached to her body. Ana is confused, and as she tries to grasp for any memory or scrap of the past, she comes up empty. She can't remember anything.
Desiree
Desiree is on fire with pain, the pulp of her right eye a bloody mess. She can’t believe the girl had blinded her, can't believe that she’d escaped. Tending to the it had set her back. And now the client is not happy. What she needs is to fulfill the mission. Desiree has a job to do, and she is almost out of time. (GoodReads)
My Opinion: Having once read the Last Policeman series, I’ve been on the lookout for another Ben H. Winter novel that captured the same essence. Enter “Big Time”, a novel that tiptoes close to the edge of his previous works.
The journey begins with a slow burn, leaving readers in the dark about the book’s ultimate destination. But then, the last 20 percent erupts, shattering expectations and propelling the reader headlong into a gripping medical espionage thriller. It’s a race against time—a fitting theme, given what unfolds.
Stealing time is an intriguing and unsettling concept. Within this narrative, time isn’t merely a linear progression; it’s a commodity that could eventually be traded and bartered. The poor, desperate for immediate relief, could sell fragments of their existence. As the world hurtles toward what could be chaos, distinguishing between the good and the bad becomes an impossible task. Durational-element technology, once speculative, now shapes reality and reshapes our perception of time itself.
If I had my way, I’d sprinkle more medical thriller elements throughout the story, nurturing the seed of suspense from the outset. But even this minor quibble pales in comparison to the explosive finale. As the clock ticks down, the stakes soar, leaving the reader breathless.
