Never go swimming with jellyfish.

That’s what Jack, the protagonist of Gary Braver’s FLASHBACK does, and he ends up comatose in the hospital, his body swollen to twice his size. He also ends up with a vastly improved memory, able to recall instances long forgotten from his childhood … as well as nightmarish situations that may or may not have happened. His case brings him to the attention of a female researcher (and eventual love interest, natch) trying to cure Alzheimer’s, and her experiments prove Jack’s experience is, sadly, not unique.

Braver’s book is a competent medical thriller made relevant with its hot-button topic twist (that of dementia). While it brings nothing new to the popular genre, it’s still ballsy enough to best the likes of its better-known practictioners like Robin Cook, whose now-tired novels are dime-a-dozen. After all, how many are ingenious enough to have one of its first few chapters feature a senile old woman stabbing a CVS clerk with a pair of scissors? It’s touches like that which place FLASHBACK a slight, um, cut above the rest.