REVIEWS OF TRACKS

SOMETIME in the near future the Global Health Care Corporation has developed microchip technology which can track every bit of your body - so an ambulance turns up to take you to hospital before you’ve hardly realised you're ill.

It's an intriguing idea and so believable.

Writer Mike Gordon is a medical software expert so knows his stuff which gives the novel a wonderfully authentic feel.

Computer expert Peter Miller leaves the corporation and starts work in a psychiatric hospital in London, developing a system to track the aggressions levels of dangerous patients. Meanwhile, the USA is threatened by a deadly virus and the race is on to keep one jump ahead of it. Not helped by what the President's microchip reveals about his state of mind...

This is a fast-moving, original, very visual thriller. Told in short sharp scenes that keep the action moving and the atmosphere tense.

It would make a great film.

5 Stars

Sharon Griffiths, The Northern Echo

This is Mike Gordon's first novel, yet to be released, and I must say, well worth reading.

This is not my usual type of book, but I really enjoyed Tracks. It was gripping, fast-paced and exciting. Issues of mental health, American security, future technology and religion are all addressed in this book. It is just under 300 pages long, and I read 200 pages in one go. There were no slow or boring parts in this book.

I liked the characters and the human characteristics they revealed and struggled with, such as fear, anger and instability. Gordon writes in a way that is realistic, making it easy to engage with the characters.

The ending was magnificent, I was thoroughly satisfied with the way Gordon brought it all together and was surprised at all the way it all tied together and the links between people that I did not see coming at all.

The only thing I did not like was the idea of the anti-christ and the 666 beast. I did not see the point of this strand of the story. I did not feel this was important in the story.

A really good first novel.

9/10

Kate Marsh, BCF Book Reviews

Tracks is a techno-thriller focussing on medical implants which allow the monitoring of patients health but also provide the means for a disturbing level of survellance; this is the first novel by Mike Gordon.

Tracks scores very highly from the beginning with an exciting introduction whereby a patient receives a phone call in the early hours informing him that he is about to have a heart attack; this beginning also introduces the reader to the problems surrounding this sort of monitoring. Whilst the plot is by no means easy to predict and contains a number of complexities, it is also laid out in a understandable and readable way. Where many similar novels get tangled up in lots of techno-jargon, the author here very skilfully avoids this and makes the reader concentrate on the plot rather than trying to impress with techno-speak.

The main character, Peter Miller, is an interesting one and a slightly unusual hero, being something of a geek with some problems engaging with other people. This, and other characters are well-formed enough to add another element to Tracks, but character development is not the primary goal of this novel - largely it is plot-driven and in this it succeeds in gripping the reader from page one until the end.

This novel is a fine effort from a first-time author and as a self-published book, it is remarkably good. Possibly the highest compliment I can pay Tracks and Mike Gordon is that the novel was one that I looked forward to picking up and continuing to read rather than one that was a chore to get to the end of.

Tracks is highly recommended to those who enjoy well thought out plots filled with controversial ideas. I would urge book lovers to buy this novel and support a self-publishing, new author in hope that he writes a second novel.

Nick Upton, Book Review Blog