Seeking redemption, a discredited agent investigates the perplexing death of an elderly millionaire, unearthing a macabre scheme that might involve himself.
Astralvia: a nation on the verge of collapse.
Jon Creepel, an elderly millionaire and CEO of a leading high-tech corporation, is dead.
Discredited Agent Graham Squirrel investigates this disconcerting death. It’s his chance to clear his name and return to the Federal Police job he lives for.
As he delves deeper into the inquiries, he discovers layers of intrigue, secrets, and plots on a significant macabre scale.
Working alongside Zabrinah Yorkt, a mysterious and complicated intelligence agent, brings extra challenges and triggers questions Squirrel would never have anticipated.
He has to escape the sinister threat looming over him and find out why they assigned him to the case, but nothing is what it seems.
And he’s about to discover the truth … he’s about to meet the Nerve.
Join Agent Squirrel to see if he cracks the mystery of Creepel’s death and survives the investigation in this suspenseful, mystery-packed sci-fi thriller.
Nerve is the enigmatic prequel to the gripping Pulstar trilogy (although you can also read it as a stand-alone novel), which took over ten years to make and has a soundtrack in production.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Speculative Science Fiction
-Existential topics
-Right & wrong and how far are you willing to bend the line between them?
-Another plane of existence
-What logic can’t explain is not always untrue
Nerve is a spectacular speculative science fiction. It is a prequel story for Pulstar (that absolutely blew my mind) but by all means holds its own and is an incredible book all on its own. Now most of the time when you hear ‘prequel’ you imagine a short story introduction to the world or situations taking place in the first book. Nerve is definitely not short, but the way it dwells into the behind the scenes of the first book is so masterful it’s hard to comprehend this was written by an actual human being.
Taking place roughly at the same time as Pulstar, although both books are spread out through a longer period of time, Nerve comes first only because it explains an important part of the workings of Astralvia and a key character’s psyche. One significant event ties the two books together as it is portrayed in both of them through the eyes of different characters: Jon Creepel’s death. While in Pulstar it comes and goes, affecting Aris’ position in Daver, the company he’s been working on quite noticeably, in Nerve we actually get to learn of the way he died as Graham Squirrel investigates the murder, learning way more than anyone expected of him.
Nerve is definitely not one of the easiest books I’ve read, but it is highly satisfying to get to the end and finally, FINALLY, put one and seventy-six together to see the bigger picture. Giancarlo Roversi certainly keeps you guessing every step of the way and where you see a slightest of a connection, there ends up being three once your eyes open up to the truth.
I believe it’s one of those books which you’d need to read a second time to find out EVERYTHING you missed out in your confusion and blinded state the first time. Being absolutely masterfully written, reading it three times, or more, sounds like a fantastic idea indeed.