Review: Sharp by Alex Hughes

Title: Sharp
Author: Alex Hughes
Genre: Science Fiction
Series: Mindspace Investigations #2

Mass Market Paperback, 339 pages

Publication: April 2, 2013 by Roc

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HISTORY HAS A WAY OF REPEATING ITSELF, EVEN FOR TELEPATHS.…

As a Level Eight telepath, I am the best police interrogator in the department. But I’m not a cop—I never will be—and my only friend on the force, Homicide Detective Isabella Cherabino, is avoiding me because of a telepathic link I created by accident.

And I might not even be an interrogator for much longer. Our boss says unless I pull out a miracle, I’ll be gone before Christmas. I need this job, damn it. It’s the only thing keeping me sane.

Parts for illegal Tech—the same parts used to bring the world to its knees in the Tech Wars sixty years ago—are being hijacked all over the city. Plus Cherbino's longtime nemesis, a cop killer, has resurfaced with a vengeance. If I can stay alive long enough, I just might be able to prove my worth, once and for all...

Adam, a level eight telepath and his sometimes partner Detective Isabella Cherabino returns in Sharp the second installment in the Mindspace Investigation series where they team up  to solve another homicide case.  Besides being an interrogator for the Atlanta Police Department, Adam occasionally gets called in to help his friend Cherabino on her homicide cases. As a telepath Adam not only can read people’s mind, and has the occasional precognition ability but he can do a lot more. Adam is able to see into mindspace everything that happened and feel the lingering emotions that were left behind. It’s been a couple of weeks from the last event in Clean, Adam is in recovery mode after burning out his telepathic abilities in the Bradley case and isn’t up to his full strength when he gets called in to help with another case. A girl is found murder in her home, but not just any girl. The victim is Emily Hamilton who was a former Guild student of Adam. Adam destroyed Emily and two other students’ telepath abilities when he was under the drug influence of Satin all those years ago.  With the guilt still eating at him for what he did to her in the past, Adam vows to do everything in his power to find Emily’s killer. What turns out to look like a regular homicide case slowly turns into something bigger, linking to one of Cherabino’s unsolved case, the Guild, Illegal Tech and Adam catching unwanted attention of Guild enforcements and the FBI. 

I really enjoyed Sharp!  Readers get to learn more about Adam’s path and The Telepath Guild.  As I mentioned in my review for Clean, the world building is quite fascinating but we don’t learn more than what we already know from the previous book. I was hoping to get a more in-depth look at Mindspace, and the different type of abilities (otherwise everything is pretty straight forward, you have your telepath, teleporters, or on rare instances both abilities) but nothing new. The murder-mystery plot of Sharp was perfectly suspenseful and well paced, I love seeing all the clues come together along the way. Although, I must say I wasn’t shocked when I found out who the ‘killer’ was at the end, I had my suspicion when the character popped up early on in the book…but that didn’t mean there weren’t any other surprises! There were moments of touch and go for some of the characters, and was actually sad to see a character get killed offL. As for our two lead characters, Adam and Cherabino are still adjusting to their mind link…Cherabino isn’t handling it any better from the first book. While both characters do grow/development a bit in Sharp, things got a bit annoying here and there with Adam’s self loathing every few chapters and Cherabino who is always getting angry/yelling at Adam. Overall Sharp is a solid sequel to the Mindspace Investigation series, with its blend of science fiction and urban fantasy. I can’t wait to what becomes of Adam and Cherabino’s mind link, Cherabino’s nephew, the FBI and the Guild…there is lots in store for Adam and it will be interesting to see how everything plays out. I highly recommend this series, definitely worth checking out.