The Last Witness

Parker (Savages) delivers a tight, intriguing tale that plays with notions of truth and memory. The narrator (nameless, like every other character in the story) has the power to remove people’s memories, in the process gaining them himself. It’s a skill that gets him into trouble and makes him occasionally wealthy, though his gambling habit soon takes care of the latter. Thanks to his power and the eidetic memory he also possesses, he’s doomed to live with the memories of having committed several awful crimes, and having been the victim of others. He also finds that his memory blurs, and events that happened to others seem as real as ones in his own past. It’s an intriguing premise, and readers will enjoy seeing how it plays out. Religious and political machinations that snag the unwary narrator deepen this quick and interesting story. (Oct.)