cover image Sleeper's Run

Sleeper's Run

Henry Mosquera. Oddity Media (www.odd-i-t.com), $9.99 trade paper (345p) ISBN 978-0-615-50544-2

Introducing an amnesiac lead that clearly is more than he appears often works as a narrative hook, but Mosquera's inability to make Eric Caine more than a cipher is fatal to this contemporary thriller. A Miami Beach inline skater witnesses a street person collapse after muttering something in Arabic. When the street person, who turns out to be Caine, wakes in a hospital, he's baffled to learn he was speaking Arabic and unaware that he was recently involved in a serious car accident. This leads to a suspension from his job as a paramedic. After ending up in a bar fight, Caine gets a break%E2%80%94a mysterious Venezuelan businessman recommends him for a position as a senior information officer to a U.S.-based development company called Corso International. He's soon dispatched by Corso to Caracas, Venezuela, ostensibly to check out some security weaknesses and resolve them. That assignment is prologue to the assassination of a high-level government official, which sends the country into turmoil and forces Caine to go on the run. Clunky prose ("Truth cut through Trishna like a lightning bolt") coupled with role reversals that won't shock anyone make for a disappointing read.