But why does he remember things that, when he checks them out, he finds never happened? People, too - like his long-lost love, the one he still yearns for despite all the women he's known since.

Did she ever really exist?

Are any of Charlie's memories real?

And if they aren't, who and what is he?


Now read Chapters 10 and 28

Paul Davies, The Mirror (January 2000)
Daily Express
Sunday Telegraph

Paul Davies, The Mirror

Pick up any David Ambrose novel, browse the cover blurb and the first thing you'll learn about the author is that he began his career writing screenplays for Orson Welles. "What a pedigree," you might think (or indeed, "what a name-dropper"). But if you've ever watched any Orson Welles films you'll know that (notwithstanding Citizen Kane and a couple of others) he was responsible for more turkeys than Bernard Matthews.

So before the alarm bells start ringing I should point out that, while his screenplays for Welles might have been nothing special, Ambrose's novels really are something to boast about. The Discrete Charm Of Charlie Monk (that's "discrete" meaning "individual" rather than "tactful") is his fourth, scary scientific thriller, and while he still hasn't captured the brain-frying brilliance of his cultish, Crichtonesque debut, The Man Who Turned Into Himself, it's another quality yarn.

The title might make it sound like an Edgar Allan Poe short story, but there's nothing old-fashioned about Ambrose. He spins stories out of cutting edge scientific theory, taking the latest research to a terrifying "what if?" conclusion. As one character remarks in the new book, "All science is a double-edged sword". And in Ambrose's world, for every good scientist there's another who wants to use new technology for unethical, deadly purposes.

Plotwise, the book has more impressive twists and turns than the American high-diving Olympic team. Nothing seems to please Ambrose more than wrongfooting his audience, taking the plot in strange new directions and causing readers to drop their proverbial bacon sandwiches every other chapter. Nobody and nothing is as it seems.

Charlie Monk is a one-man army, a cross between Arnie and James Bond. An ultra-professional killing machine working for a secretive organisation of American mercenaries. Charlie is trained to shoot first and ask questions later, and his mind is always on the job in hand. That's because Charlie doesn't have any proper memories. just a few dim recollections about being sent as an orphan to a special school called "The Farm". Meanwhile Dr Susan Flemyng. a biologist specialising in brain diseases, has found a way to transplant artificial memories into the minds of her patients. But her discovery has already found its way into the wrong hands and it seems that Charlie is in fact some kind of bionic military guinea pig.

To tell you any more about the plot would simply ruin everything, except to say the basic story is about the creation of the ultimate, superhuman soldier, with a hefty dose of mind control, genetic experiments and zoo animals. And there's enough virtual reality to confuse even the most attentive reader about whether what is happening is real or just taking place in the characters' imagination — but on the whole, it works.

Don't be put off by the disappointing (and rather messy) opening. Ambrose might be great at ending novels, but he's useless at starting them. They always seem to take an age to get going, no doubt because there's a lot of scientific theory to plough through before the action can begin.

His books are like rollercoaster rides: the first 50-odd pages are a painfully slow climb during which you wonder what the hell is going on, before you plummet into the abyss with an unstoppable momentum, fingernails gripping the seat. But he's a clever novelist, too, and I'm hard-pressed to think of a more intelligent thriller writer at work today. No one monkeys around with your mind quite like David Ambrose.