Review 235: Pulse

Pulse by Michael Harvey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



A few bits aren't connected, but for most you can make the leap. The quantum physics and entanglement made for a little reality bending, perhaps. That aspect drew me in. Quick read.

It is a crime book, murder mystery, thriller type. There are several main characters, a teenager Daniel Fitzsimmons and a cop Barkley, not sure he ever had another name other than “Bark”. Daniel maybe is schizophrenic, or maybe these things happen to him…he can “see” what he shouldn’t be able to, such as what happened with someone that he shouldn’t know. It isn’t labored over, but instead explained when Daniel meets Simon Lane, who is looking for someone to rent a room in his apartment. Although Daniel is only 16, he is an orphan and is sleeping on the floor in his brother’s rented room. Harry Fitzsimons is a star football player, gets great grades and is going to Harvard. Daniel is on a scholarship as well at a Latin prep school. 

Simon tells Daniel about quantum mechanics, how there are links between molecules despite any sort of distance, the are tethered, or as they use the term, entangled. Daniel then believes this entanglement and feels it with his friend, a girl who he “pushes” to kiss him, Grace. When Daniel tells Grace about this she denies she needed any prodding, but also then says how she sees things too, perhaps entangled.  Simon is a bit creepy, overly interested in Daniel, standing in his room at night.

Meanwhile Harry goes out with his roommate and his best friend and ends up dead. They went to Boston’s “Combat Zone” the seedy part of town, under the apparent “Harvard football tradition” post season. 

It’s ends up that the best friend is involved in his murder as well as a friend of the roommate, which also ends up being the dad. And the father was the one who ultimately killed him, being a bit “nutty”. Of course this doesn’t come out until the last few pages or so. Also find out the dad was the one who killed their mom, which was deemed an “accident” when investigated back when it happened. Daniel was 8 and was in the car, the trunk actually, and he surprisingly surprised the crash. Shortly after, on the way to the hospital, Daniel went into a coma for a while. 

While there an orderly or someone in the hospital, not supposed to be in the room, pokes Daniel with long needles. Is he injecting him? Is he just hurting him? What is the guy doing? It isn’t explained, it isn’t really discussed much, but the day Daniel wakes up the guy ends up jumping off the hospital roof and dying. One theory is that Daniel made him do that by willing it with his mind…like mind control.

The book does have some seediness. Daniel and Harry’s mother was a prostitute working in the Combat Zone area. Then Barkley’s partner is a dirty cop with many addictions: coke, alcohol, gambling. He is supposed to be clean, but of course not at all, and once “they” get to you, have their hooks in you, it’s impossible to get away.  There’s something he needs to do, and will earn “forever money” but what exactly is that? Who sets this up? Not really explained. Perhaps they mean it is the kids father? He’s wrapped up in this too…he’s a photographer and “just happened” to take photos of the crime in progress. Well, the guy that it was pinned on didn’t actually kill Harry and the father ended up finishing it. But the dirty copy was involved, and later he killed the suspect. Then later Barkley following leads ends up killing his partner, after he killed Harry’s best friend. He was in the whole thing too, leading Harry out of the car, to be chased down the alley so he could get murdered. 

Why the dad wanted him dead, or the mother well, that is never explained either. Maybe the guy is just nuts. He was going to kill Daniel as well, but someone, Simon comes up and kills him instead.

Although then it turns out that Simon didn’t kill him, just injected him to make him pass out. And the cops don’t have any evidence, nor believe that Simon is real. After his father was killed Simon told Daniel he was him but, in the future, they were the same, and the cops believe that Daniel is just hallucinating and creating these stories as a way of dealing with all the trauma that’s happened to him…being in the car when his mom died, then his brother dying. 

Somewhat odd part of the book, not all explained well, but it was a quick read!