Del Rey, Penguin Random House/ISBN-13: 9781529100655/ISBN-10: 1529100658/17th September 2020

Happy paperback publication day (17/09/2020) to this fabulous book from John Marrs. The Minders tells the story of four people who have been given the task of holding the nations secrets – in their brains! Hypothetically, their heads are unhackable and so our secrets are extra safe in there….

I enjoyed this book, it wasn’t what I thought it would be, in neither a good nor bad way. I had gone from reading one of Marrs’ previous books, The Good Samaritan, straight to this one, and they are so very different! Whereas TGS was a chilling psychological thriller with plenty of death and emotions all over the place, this book took more of an Sci-Fi turn and explored the nature of a kind of dystopian future where we can only rely on our brains because of the amount of tech we have available to hack our current infrastructures.

As mentioned above, there are four Minders, they are:

Flick, Charlie, Sinead and Bruno.

Each have their own unique story and reasons why they have been chosen to be a Minder.

There are hints to Marrs’ other Sci-Fi books The Passengers and The One, which I haven’t read, but know the basic premise of. So we see Flick and Charlie’s lives affected by being matched with people they perhaps shouldn’t have (The One), Sinead needs an escape from an abusive relationship and Bruno is intrigued by the Minders so much that he eventually turns away from what they were trying to achieve in the first place, suffering from a sort of mental breakdown.

I read this quickly, and was always drawn to carry on, even though it isn’t the kind of book I would immediately reach for. The writing is precise and detailed, showcasing Marrs’ obvious ability to create a new world where this plot could feasibly exist. It’s believable. It’s scary. It could happen, and the things left unsaid are perhaps the most frightening.

I would recommend you read this one if you are looking for a break from reality, but you don’t want to wander too far. For fans of sci-fi psychological thrillers, dystopian realities and government conspiracies.

Happy reading!

Becca

Thank you the author and publisher, Del Ray, for sending me a copy of this book, all opinions are my own.