Tim Downs’ latest thriller, HEAD GAME, begins like no other: Its first chapter is almost entirely wordless, rendered as a six-page comic-book story, in which a man draws his own suicide note – what we’re reading, ostensibly – before taking his own life.

That man, we learn, was named Kirby. Along with pal Cale Caldwell and Capt. “Pug” Moseley, he was part of a propaganda mission for the United States in the first Gulf War, charged with creating and dropping surrender-style leaflets over enemy territory. They did their job well, but Kirby’s untimely, tragic death suggests it was not without a price.

In fact, the price is even bigger than anticipated, because Hashim – an enraged, defeated and very bitter soldier from those days – has traveled to the States, tracked down the trio (or what’s left of them) and is out for blood. He enacts a detailed, complex game of psychological warfare with them – one which requires using Cale’s teenage daughter as bait and a carefully chosen hooker as a pawn.

Downs’ plot is full of the expected twists and turns; I just didn’t know when to expect them and what they’d be. One of the more clever tricks is embedding clues to the overall mystery within those opening graphic pages. They’re not there just to look cool or be edgy; they actually serve a purpose.

With this and last year’s sleeper PLAGUEMAKER, Downs proves himself as a reliable supplier of page-turning suspense. Like the terrorist setup of PLAGUEMAKER, he’s quite good at taking “ripped from today’s headlines” themes and turning them into total entertainments, rather than exploitative, scare-your-pants-off fear machines.

Whether it was conscious on Downs’ part or not, there is an underlying sense of white paranoia here, as the only ethnic character is also HEAD GAME’s only evil one. But since it’s just one guy and we are dealing with a war fought in his country, perhaps it makes sense. Other than that, HEAD GAME is pretty much PG-13 in subject matter, but rated R in attitude. –Rod Lott

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OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• PLAGUEMAKER by Tim Downs