The Man With the Golden Mind Review – Fascinating Spy Thriller

The Man With the Golden Mind
By Tom Vater

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.