Library Journal
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Cooper works for the Department of Analysis and Response, an agency like our Homeland Security but even more secret. The agency's charge is to capture and eliminate terrorists among the supersmart ("abnorms," "twists"). Cooper is the department's ace. Alone among his associates, he himself is a brilliant. He sees patterns where no one else does and reacts more quickly and effectively. Master terrorist John Smith has eluded capture for years. Then his followers carry out a horrific massacre on Wall Street, leaving hundreds dead and maimed. Cooper comes up with a plan to catch the terrorist by going rogue. The department will chase Cooper into Smith's arms, and when he finds Smith, he'll kill him. Nothing turns out as expected, though, and in the process Cooper learns unpleasant truths about his very paranoid world. The result is a work that is both a thriller and a respectable novel of ideas. VERDICT Sakey's (The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes; Good People) is one of the more surprising thrillers of the year. It should appeal to both sf and mystery lovers.-David Keymer, Modesto, CA (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

In this thriller set in an alternate present-day America, one percent of children born after 1986 are "brilliants," manifesting talents beyond any savants previously known. As the "normal" population's mistrust and fear of brilliants grows, along with brilliants' anger and resentment at being monitored and controlled, tensions between the two groups nears the breaking point. Nick Cooper, a brilliant with the ability to read body language and predict human behavior, is a government agent tasked with tracking down-and sometimes assassinating-the most talented and dangerous terrorists with brilliant abilities. When Cooper takes on a desperate mission to take down the agency's most wanted adversary, he finds not just his life but his beliefs and loyalty in jeopardy. Cooper's mission takes unexpected twists, the story is never dull, and narrator Luke Daniels does an excellent job presenting the fast-paced novel. VERDICT Recommended for fans of espionage, thrillers, and alternate universe fiction. ["Sakey's...is one of the more surprising thrillers of the year. It should appeal to both sf and mystery lovers," read the review of the Thomas & Mercer: Amazon hc, LJ 6/15/13.]-Jason Puckett, Georgia State Univ. Lib., Atlanta (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A deadly agent assigned to track down and terminate dangerous, gifted fugitives finds society's landscape shifting beneath his feet. What if 1 percent of the world's children were born with powerful gifts? How would society adapt to their presence? Those are just some of the big questions behind this visceral, inventive thriller by prolific crime writer Sakey (The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes, 2011, etc.). It's set in a future where non-neurotypical people (demonized as "twists" by society) are threatening the status quo of the "normal" population with their unique gifts. Divorc Nick Cooper is a noirish government agent who works for the dully named Department of Analysis and Response in a U.S.-funded agency, Equitable Services. His job is to track down criminals who use their gifts for ill. These aren't the well-worn tropes of the superhero genrefor example, Cooper's gift is for predictive analysis, allowing him to see what will happen before it happens and react. It's a vision that offers up bone-crunching violence and a plausible future that is far more terrifying than it might seem on the surface. We first meet Cooper as he's engaging an abnorm in a pitched rooftop chase. Before plunging to her death, she warns Cooper, "You can't stop the future. All you can do is pick a side." The book is ultimately about a standoff between a terrorist who dubs himself "John Smith," Cooper, and a woman, Shannon Azzi, who may or may not be on Smith's side. But in the telling, Sakey pulls off every trick in the book, from staccato dialogue to jaw-dropping plot reversalshe even engages in some worldbuilding by seeding the book with eerie interstitial elements like news reports and advertisements that help portray a world going to hell in real time. It's a dizzying ride in which the novel's execution is as nimble as its freaky ideas. A farsighted thriller about what happens when people really do think differently. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

*Starred Review* Sakey, who built a following by putting average people in grave danger from remorseless killers (The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes, 2011), veers in a new direction: Brilliance posits that, in 1980, 1 in every 100 children born in the U.S. proved to be a savant. Three decades later, these unique geniuses have changed the U.S.; the abnormals are titans, and ordinary Americans are irrelevant. One ab quickly built a $300 billion fortune and destabilized the world economy, while another, Nick Cooper, is the top agent in the Equitable Response Unit of the federal Department of Analysis and Response (DAR). Cooper sees himself as a soldier in an undeclared war against abs who have turned to terrorism. But when he intuits that his four-year-old daughter may be an ab, he is torn because she will be taken from him, given a new name, and kept in one of several DAR-run academies, which he discovers are brainwashing centers. Sakey's premise is utterly compelling; no committed thriller aficionado will be able to set the book down. His complex characters are deeply engaging, and his writing is propulsive. Best, however, is his insightful evocation of government and popular reaction to the brilliants. We've already seen it: in doctrines of preemptive war, enhanced interrogation techniques, the Patriot Act, the civil rights struggle, and the ginned-up, gnawing fear that sets Americans against Americans. Brilliance is disturbing and brilliant.--Gaughan, Thomas Copyright 2010 Booklist

Publishers Weekly
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Sakey (The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes) paints a near future too close for comfort in this stunning thriller, the first in a projected series. About 1% of American children born after 1986-known as abnorms, among other names-are particularly brilliant. A tiny percentage of these are problematic, like Erik Epstein, who understood stock market movements so well he made a fortune that led to the permanent closing of the New York Stock Exchange in 2011. Nick Cooper, a divorced former soldier and a member of Equitable Services, a U.S. government agency with the responsibility of tracking and killing abnorm terrorists, plays a dangerous cat-and-mouse game with the terrorists' leader, John Smith, and with Shannon Azzi, Smith's agent. Cooper calls Shannon "the Girl Who Walks Through Walls" for her ability to appear out of nowhere. When Cooper's children come under threat, he pretends to defect from Equitable Services and reluctantly teams with Shannon. He soon finds his world giddily turning upside down while he sacrifices almost everything for justice and equality. In this parable of democracy's downfall told in rapid-fire cuts, Sakey upends truths Cooper once thought self-evident, the truths people don't seem to want any more, preferring instead, "safe lives and nice electronics and full fridges"-nothing less than the tragedy of our times. Agent: Scott Miller, Trident Media Group. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.