The Man With The Golden Mind

Series: #2 Detective Maier Mysteries Trilogy

By, Tom Vater

Format Read: Ebook with EVIE App playback

How obtained: Part of a book tour for the book from Blackthorn Book Tours.

Book Summary:

Julia Rendel asks Maier to investigate the twenty-five year old murder of her father, an East German cultural attaché who was killed near a fabled CIA airbase in central Laos in 1976.

But before the detective can set off, his client is kidnapped right out of his arms. Maier follows Julia’s trail to the Laotian capital Vientiane, where he learns different parties, including his missing client are searching for a legendary CIA file crammed with Cold War secrets.

But the real prize is the file’s author, a man codenamed Weltmeister, a former US and Vietnamese spy and assassin no one has seen for a quarter century.

I recommend this book for ages 16+ due to the violence and sexual content.

From the trauma and excitement that was Cambodia. Tom Vater is back with my favorite Detective. This time Detective Maier is looking to solve a 25 year old murder case in Laos.

In true Tom Vater style nothing is as simple as it seems. Tom Vater knows how to keep you on your seat and weave a tale filled with twists and enough excitement that can keep you going on for multiple books all in one fast paced book.

Detective Maier keeps becoming more fleshed out in this second book of the series and we get the chance to learn more about his past and family tree as well as seeing him try to work out some “daddy issues” while trying to keep himself alive and mostly intact. Maier has the luck of the devil or maybe deep down enjoys the pressure of his cases and the beatings he gets himself into along with plenty of narrow escapes and some heartbreaking circumstances as retirement is an ugly work that might be slowly worming its way into him.

I enjoyed, as with every book I have read from Tom Vater, the history with the thrilling story all entwined together so seamlessly. If you have read the previous Detective Maier book you will definitely enjoy this one as the stakes raise a bit higher and old grievances are brought to light with the Detective dragged into it all. I am definitely hoping for at the very least some kind of Netflix series adaptation of this book series with each book covering a season. Let’s get on this. But at the very least pick up a copy of this book or the first in the series called “Cambodian Book of the Dead” and start reading this wonderful series or if you have read that already pick up this entry into the series.

I look forward to seeing how Detective Maier keeps changing and what other adventures and situations he ends up in.

I give this book, 5 lost appendages out of 5. ( )

Fans of noir fiction, spy stories, and faraway locations will enjoy The Man With the Golden Mind. Tom Vater combined his spectacular settings and witty analogies in a James Bond style tale of hunting for a superspy in Laos in 2002.

This is the second Detective Maier novel, but it’s a standalone book that can be enjoyed even if you haven’t read The Cambodian Book Of the Dead. The books depict unique cases that take place years apart in different Asian countries.

This mission sends German detective Maier to Laos by a client wanting an investigation into her father’s death. After the client is kidnapped, Maier heads to Laos to find her and complete his assignment. Once in Laos, Meier realizes that he’s there for a much bigger, farther reaching tangle of events spanning over decades.

Vater includes a number of ingredients typically found in James Bond thrillers, including larger-than-life villains, fabulous locations, beautiful mysterious women, and over-the-top death scenarios. He embraces the similarities by even calling out James Bond multiple times. It's always fun when a bad guy starts monologuing, and Vater embraces any chance for a juicy monologue. I’m a big fan of Ian Fleming’s Bond novels, and The Man With the Golden Mind is from the same mold.

The plot is rich and the characters delightfully eccentric that I don’t want to spoil the fun here by providing too many details. The best part is thinking that the story is over, only to realize that there is plenty left to be told. Now that I’ve finished the book, I can’t wait to read another book by Tom Vater.

Thanks to Blackthorn Book Tours for providing me a review copy of the book. ( )

Maths not being a strong point, I got myself tied up in knots reading THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN MIND. Perhaps it wasn't helped by not having read the earlier book in the series, but I could not, for the life of me, get the timeframes straight in my own mind.

Twenty-five years after Julia Rendel's father was killed at a CIA base in Laos, she asks Maier to investigate his murder. Not long after this Rendel is kidnapped and Maier is left in a country he doesn't seem to know a lot about, working with the scant information provided before Rendel's disappearance, searching for the CIA base, the killer, a cache of gold, a legendary CIA file and its author, Weltmeister.

The path to all of the above winds its way from Vientiane, through the countryside of Laos, coming up against a rather eclectic series of challenges. There's a sharpshooter who appears to be very accurate, and very selective in his killing. There's a lost tribe of heavily tattooed young men, who follow the word of an American MIA. There's the ex-servicemen looking for more of those MIA's, locals prepared to lead Maier through the jungle, and a mysterious character with a personal connection to the searched for airbase, who appears to hold all the answers. There's also some rather exotic locations, islands with ex-prostitutes, temples, jungle, hidden airfields, fancy and not so fancy hotels, and quite a few bedrooms along the way.

The plot is big, brave and ever so slightly crazy. Especially as the beginning of the book has to do some seriously heavy lifting introducing a range of characters that might leave readers with an urge for a whiteboard, and some maps. There's also a lot of connections being built - between those characters, and with the past and the present. Which was part of what was doing my mathematically challenged little brain in. Couldn't for the life of me work out the ages / age gaps and likelihood of everybody being where they were in the past, let alone where they were now. It all got a little baffling at points.

As did the character of Maier, who is so formal, so cautious, so calculating in some ways, and yet, willing to throw his hand in with every friendly face (especially if it's female) that comes his way.

After a while the chaos of the age gaps, the oddness of the characters, the exoticness of the setting all kind of started to meld into something that was, sure, very odd and a bit weird, and why the hell not.

The great thing about reviewing books is that sometimes something presents itself with absolutely no fanfare, leaving you with no idea of what to expect. THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN MIND certainly served up something very unexpected, and not exactly one out of the mould when it comes to thrillers. It left this reader with a wishlist that now includes the earlier book in the series.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/man-golden-mind-tom-vater ( )