Thrilling soap opera in book form

If you're in for a psychological thriller full of action and twists, 'The Minders' could be your cup of tea.

Caution

This story takes place in the same world as 'The One' and 'The Passengers'.
If you haven't read those books yet and you're planning to, it's highly recommended to read 'The Minders' afterwards as it contains big spoilers about these two earlier books!

Revolutionary medical procedure

As computers can be hacked, an unique government initiative saw the light: the country's most secretive information has been taken offline and turned into genetic code implanted inside the heads of five ordinary people.
Together, the five know the truth behind every Government lie, conspiracy theory and cover up.
Only somebody has discovered who the secret keepers are. And one by one, they are being hunted down...

Variation

Something John Marrs often does in his stories, is writing from different points of view.
It's no different in this book where we follow five people: Flick, Charlie, Sinéad, Emilia and Bruno.
Every chapter is told from the point of view of one of these main characters.
Either you like that or not. But I certainly do, as it offers a lot of variation during reading. Furthermore, it keeps the pace in the story, because almost every chapter ends with a cliffhanger and is therefore as addicitive as a soap opera.

Another nice touch is the fact that these chapters are interspersed with other 'material' like minutes from top secret meetings, a contract of employment, …

What also deserves a mention is the use of synaesthesia as a plot element.
Not everyone knows this perceptual phenomenon which is often described as a 'crossing of the senses' and causes some people to see colours when they hear music, give human-like personalities to numbers, letters and days of the week (f.e. seeing a red haired woman when thinking of the number nine), …

Conclusion

Actually this story - just like all the books of John Marrs I've read so far - makes me think of a soap opera.
On the one hand it reads very fast and knows how to keep your attention with all the cliffhangers and twists.
But on the other hand, you'll only be able to enjoy it to the fullest if you can regularly suspend your disbelief.
And when you think about the story after you've finished reading, you'll realize that there are some major plotholes that don't make much sense.
For this reason the book gets 2,5* which is rounded up because of the reading enjoyment.

The author

Until a few years ago, John Marrs worked as a freelance journalist based in London (England) and spent 25 years of interviewing celebrities from the world of television, film and music for national newspapers. In 2018 he became a full-time writer.

His debut novel The Wronged Sons saw the light in 2013. It was re-edited in 2017 and got a new title: When You Disappeared.
In May 2015 he released his second book Welcome To Wherever You Are. It was re-edited in 2021 and got a new title: The Vacation.

2017 was a fruitful year in which he published no less than two books:
The One and The Good Samaritan.

From then on, John Marrs released a book every year.
​In 2018 there was the police procedural thriller Her Last Move.
In 2019 readers could discover The Passengers, a thriller set in the same world as The One.
In 2020 he wrote the bestseller What Lies Between Us, a psychological thriller which has been optioned by Renée Zellweger's production company.
Also in 2020, he released The Minders, which took place in the same world as The One and The Passengers.

Next year there will be two new books: a psychological thriller and a work of speculative fiction.

If you want to read more about this author you can head over to

*Thanks to NetGalley and Del Rey for providing a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.