Presence of Mind — Edward Cline

Ideas that kill . . . This challenging mystery by the author of FIRST PRIZE brings back Chess Hanrahan, "a thinking man's Mike Hammer." A woman working undercover for the FBI is dead as Russian agents make a grab for a seemingly obscure computer company. Hanrahan, who believes no observable phenomenon is beyond rational scrutiny, plays a high-stakes game with a cabal of social scientists who want to reshape public thought--knowing that ideas can kill. Cline's previous Hanrahan mystery, FIRST PRIZE, was praised as a "striking tale" (Allen J. Hubin, The Armchair Detective).