Constance by Matthew Fitzsimmons

Thomas & Mercer, 2021 (release date Sept. 1 2021)

ISBN: 9781542014274

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

Constance is an outstanding thriller written in the vein of Michael Crichton.  It’s extremely fast paced and  emotionally deep. Its version of Earth in the future is beautifully detailed, with a lot of thought put in to how technology may evolve in the next 15 years.  This is a “can’t miss” book, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see Hollywood snap it up, it would be perfect material for Christopher Nolan (Interstellar, Inception) to direct.

The backbone of the book centers on human cloning, but not for replacement parts.  It’s for cloning replacement human beings in the event of  their untimely deaths.  Anyone with a clone in stasis has to re-download their consciousness into the clone every thirty days.  If a person dies, the clone is activated and the only memory lag should be between the last “refresh” of the clone and their time of death.   The protagonist, Constance D’Arcy, has a clone, a gift from her eccentric and very rich aunt.  When Constance wakes from her latest refresh, she learns she is not Constance, but Constance’s clone, just activated after 18 months of the original Constance being missing.  The clone (called “Con” here to eliminate confusion) is quickly on the run for her life, as various parties want her for… something.  It’s a complex puzzle for Con to learn what Constance was up to in the last 18 months, and how it relates to her being hunted by the various antagonists in the story.

Any more would spoil the plot, but it’s enough to say this is an incredible novel.  The characters are perfectly done and filled with depth, the thrills never stop, and the puzzle is a tough one to unravel as you read it.  Also, the science is explained well enough that the average reader won’t get overwhelmed.  Like the movie Inception, there are layers to the story, in terms of clones… and their clones… and the consciousness of some characters cloned into completely new bodies unrelated to the original.  It might be a lot to handle, but the author’s clear style keeps it easy to follow for the reader.  It helps make the story great, as the reader will never know for sure who a character actually is, until the author reveals it.  In the hands of a less talented author this could have been a labyrinthine mess, but Fitzsimmons pulls it off to perfection.

Fitzsimmons also does an excellent job painting some of the ethical and political problems of cloning into the story.  Different viewpoints on cloning are expressed through characters that are essential to the story.  The push/pull dynamic between the characters and their viewpoints on cloning adds depth to the story without controlling the narrative, and it is extremely well done.

Simply put, anyone who loves a good story has to get this one when it is released.  For a thriller, it doesn’t get any better than this.  Highly recommended.

Contains: profanity, mild violence

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson