Interface

In this uneven near-future thriller from Britz-Cunningham (The Immortalist), the Interface—a brain implant giving humans total connectivity—has become so valuable as a method for control that “practically every country around the world has made receiving an implant mandatory from the age of fourteen and up—on pain of death.” Taiki Graf, “the chief architect of the Interface” who’s been presumed dead for years, is so appalled by its consequences that he’s willing to create outbreaks of insane violence to show everyone that the implants are dangerous. His chief obstacle is his half-brother, Egon, the head of the U.S. government’s Federal Anti-Terrorist Authority, who desperately tries to prevent Taiki from fully activating a murderous virus that enters the brain through the implants. NYPD captain Yara Avril, who has loved both men, suspects that Taiki is right about the Interface’s bad influence, but she follows her duty to prevent more killing. Britz-Cunningham, a nuclear medicine physician, makes the medical menace convincing, but his storytelling tends to go over the top, as in the conclusion when Egon plans to lead a spectacular public execution in Yankee Stadium. Such extreme melodrama makes the book hard to take seriously. (Nov.)