A Quantum Murder: The Greg Mandel Trilogy, Book 2

A Quantum Murder is the 2nd book in Greg Mandel trilogy. Although, this is a standalone story, all the relevant characters from Book 1, Mindstar Rising, are back, so the background is useful. The story occurs about 2 years after the 1st with the same general conditions in place. This time around, Greg is dragged into a murder investigation of a prominent physicist who was doing work for Event Horizon. In spite of appearing to crack the case, his intuition suggests something is amiss and he pursues justice with a Mandel doggedness.

Hamilton introduces some bizarre physics dealing with apparent time travel without the typical causality paradox. In addition, he explores the world of designer synthetic chemistry (probably around the time that ecstasy was becoming popular in England) and the biology of memory. Surprisingly (for Peter Hamilton). the sci-fi components are not only underwhelming, but nearly fade into the background as the mystery deepens. At its heart though, this is an engaging and erudite who-dun-it. The only slight detriment is the "Night of the Living Dead" scene close to the end which was just a bit over the top..

I didn't do my research when I selected this book. I thought it was a new Peter Hamilton and jumped into it right away. It didn't take long for the dated buzz words and clumsy writing to convince me this must be an ancient book. A little research and yes, this book is more than 15 years old.

Peter F. Hamilton has certainly grown as a writer. But knowing the proper frame of reference for this work I able was to sit back and enjoy this young work. If you listen real close you'll be able to hear the beginnings of characters, situations, and technologies that would be showcased in the Commonwealth Sagas and in the Void books.

I downloaded this book on the day Audible made it available and there were a few technical issues with the recording (especially, part 2 of the download). Audible may find these and fix these but if they don't you'll be able to hear the narrator turn pages and hear the narrator mock the writing (don't remember the exact quote but the narrator disapproved of the author's describing a character's hair as "manes"). Unfortunate, as the reading by the narrator was excellent - he did a great jump picking "voices" that match the persona the writer had wanted each character to project.

If one has not read volume one in the trilogy, I think A Quantum Murder may strike some readers as pretty far out. The geopolitical background in the first novel is essential for suspension of belief in the second.

I am 71 and have been reading Sci Fi and fantasy since Heinlein in the 50s. Nothing is going to turn me off of speculative fiction.

There is a third novel in the series. I hope it is better than the second. It is my next walking read.

Once again, Toby Longworth delivers.

I love Peter Hamilton's books. I listen to them over and over; but why did Audible first post book three, then book two? I'm not going to start this series until they post book one.

Great twist at end! Great foundation for Peter's other books.

The ending twist!

Love listening to Toby Longworth read.

Yes

Unexpected twists in the story line.

Yes. He did great

Kept me on the edge of my seat

The first book was an introduction to what Greg can do and the story was pretty good also, this time hes back helping Julia Evans again and some of his friends are back.

This time he is investigating a murder that's Quantum in nature if that makes sense at all, it appears as if the murder was done in the same manner as a famous killer that's been locked up for a while so he couldn't do it, right? - that's where it gets strange and there is no was you will guess what the outcome is, I was guessing all the time at what happened and was wrong most all of the time, what happens is pretty strange.

This is another product of the early 90's as it has some of the theories that were going around then and made them into facts possibly even correctly in some cases - there are parts about global warming with melting ice caps and a housing market crash which lately is sounding more real compared to the melting ice caps.

with that being said its not "dated" as some older Sci-Fi is from the same era other than some names of companies that either don't exist or haven't merged like the names in the book suggest but its all good since the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey has a Pan Am jet in it but they went out years ago it doesn't bother me much

Nothing is wrong with these books its just not up to what I like about the later books by this author, Audible.com doesn't have the next trilogy he wrote "The Nights Dawn - Trilogy" but its really good and Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained which Audible.com does have are simply amazing.

If you liked the first book and want to see Greg, Julia, and friends tackle something else then this for you, as well as the next one

Fun story and great reader. Would try either author or reader again. Stupid word minimum.

I really like the first Greg Mandel book, Mindstar rising. This one I just sort of liked. I'm going to read other reviews to determine if I get the third. There are way too many good books out there to read/listen to before you read/listen to this one.

The first Greg Mandel book was enjoyable. This second isn't nearly as interesting. As a mystery, it falls seriously short. It was obvious "who done it" early on, and then is was just a matter of plodding on through the book until the end. And the characters weren't nearly as interesting as in the first book. We didn't learn anything new about them at all. That's why for me it's only 3 stars.