The Mirror Man

While human cloning isn't currently possible, it's not so far-fetched that the scenario presented by The Mirror Man is completely unbelievable. Jeremiah Adams is unhappy with his life. He feels disconnected from his son, and he suspects his wife is cheating on him (but doesn't have the guts to confront her or work to improve his marriage). So it doesn't take much to convince him to step off-stage for a year to take part in an ethically and legally questionable experiment and earn a cool $10 million while his clone takes his place. Sounds like a great deal, doesn't it? Let someone else deal with the hassle of your daily life, and you just sit back, observe, and collect the money at the end of the experiment.

But it doesn't take long before Jeremiah starts to realize how uncomfortable it is seeing “himself” from an outside perspective. And when he figures out that there's a sinister undercurrent to the experiment, and that ViMed will stop at nothing to make sure it is completed, he also realizes that he will do whatever it takes to protect his family. Suddenly, that life he was so disenchanted with is worth preserving.

Jeremiah wasn't a very likeable protagonist at the outset. He slouches through his life, putting work first, not investing a whole lot of time or emotional energy into parenting or his marriage. He struck me as a very selfish person at the start. It's all about what benefits Jeremiah first, everyone else a distant second. But as I read and watched him watching himself, saw him realizing what he had been missing out on with his family, it became easier to feel compassion for him. I liked him a lot more at the end of the book than I did at the beginning.

The Mirror Man hits hard and makes you think. What kind of person can leave behind family - the people he's supposed to love the most - for filthy lucre? Even if they don't know he's gone, still, Jeremiah basically said money counted more than living his life. How far will we go when push comes to shove to protect the people we didn't think we had a solid bond with? How well do we really know ourselves and what we're capable of? And what makes us, well, “us”? The clone had all of Jeremiah's memories. But did that make him the same as - indistinguishable from - the original Jeremiah? Read the book and find out.

This is a horror book for people who don't think they like horror, a suspenseful sci-fi thriller that doesn't rely on jump scares. No gore, no slasher bits - just a well-told story that pulls you along on a ride that gets faster by the page and moments where you are well and truly horrified at the lengths to which some people will go to accomplish their desires.

Disclaimer: Thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin - MIRA for an advance reader copy of The Mirror Man and the opportunity to take part in the blog tour. All opinions here are mine, and I don't say nice things about books I don't actually like.