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Title: Head Case
Subtitle: A Tom Mondrian Story
Author: Ross Armstrong
Narrator: Ross Armstrong
Format: Unabridged
Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
Language: English
Release date: 01-11-18
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Limited
Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective
Publisher's Summary:
He's the last person you want on your case. And the only one who can solve it.
Tom Mondrian's perfectly happy as a PCSO directing traffic, until a bullet to the brain changes everything. With a new unusual perspective, including an inability to recognise faces and absolutely no filter between his brain and his mouth, Tom's convinced his career should be over.
Until his new condition also helps him start noticing details that others police officers are missing, and gives him a determination to save three missing girls, before more start to disappear.
Critic Reviews:
"An eerily atmospheric reworking of Hitchcock's Rear Window." (The Guardian on The Watcher)
"Addictive and eerie, you'll finish the book wanting to chat about it." (Closer Magazine, Must Read)
"A twisted homage to Hitchcock set in a recognisably post-Brexit broken Britain. Tense, fast-moving and with an increasingly unreliable narrator, The Watcher has all the hallmarks of a winner." (Martyn Waites)
Members Reviews:
Head Case
I enjoyed this author's previous book, The Watcher, as it was a little bit different from the norm, so I was very interested in seeing what he would serve up next. From The Watcher, I knew that I was probably in for an interesting ride as I spent the majority of that book a wee bit on the confused side but, he came through for me in the end in that book so I was able to trust that he'd probably do likewise here. I am glad I had this foresight for this book as, to be honest, it was also a bit unique!
So, Tom Mondrian is a Police Community Support Officer in London. He has only just finished his training and has been on the job barely a week before he is shot in the head. Instead of killing him outright, the bullet fragments and lodges in various parts of his brain causing damage to areas responsible for certain personality traits. The two most obvious and indeed important ones being that he now can't recognise faces, nor does he have that filter between brain and mouth. Basically bypassing the "What you think and what you say" filter. He has other quirks too but I will leave you to discover them in your own time.
He is shocked and surprised when, instead of being cut from the force, pensioned off in the line of duty, his employment is continued. Something about disability quota and good publicity, being some of the reasons bandied about.
He is partnered with fellow PCSO Emre Bartu and the two of them are sent to do the mundane work usually carried out by those in their position. On one such call, they dip their toes into the ongoing investigation of missing schoolgirls. Tom's interested is piqued and he uses his new found skills, born from his condition, to inveigle himself into the case; off the books of course, with Emre a reluctant but mostly willing participant.
One of the things that made this book for me was the wonderful character of Tom Mondrian. In him, the author has created someone really rather special. Not just with his new skillset as there were glimpses to be found before the accident. I am not sure exactly what it is about him but I took to him from the off. Post-accident, with all his quirks established, he just blossomed into someone really quite unique. Told from his own perspective, it is at times challenging to follow but, as already mentioned, I have been here with this author before so I knew to stick with it.