In order to do his job, Cole undergoes surgery to receive the implanted memories of murder victims. After he recovers from the eight hour operation, he can remember the thoughts of someone else - right up until the moment of their death that is. Sometimes these memories are fuzzy, but others are perfectly clear. Cole's cases completely consume his every waking moment, leaving him without much of a personal life but that's how he prefers it. He will do whatever it takes to solve the case and track down the killer. While Cole is working his most recent case, however, he begins to suspect that someone else is using the memory-transfer tech for another purpose altogether. Cole isn't far off, in fact, he's the only one standing in the way of a ruthless company harvesting people's most intimate memories and eliminating anyone standing in the way.

The Memory Detective by T.S. Nichols has so much potential. The concept behind it is absolutely fantastic, but it never quite hits that mark in execution. I liked getting a look into this author's take on near future technology. I was particularly interested in the consequences of the memory-transfer surgery. Everyday people can receive only one sometimes two transfers, but Cole is the exception to the rule due to his detective skills. He's had many more transfers than the average person could ever hope to receive - and the consequences are high. Think insanity. Unfortunately, I couldn't really connect with Cole because he feels too distant and a little flat. If this novel were told in the first person, I think that would have definitely helped get us into his head. I don't know about you, but with the memory subject matter I think that could only be a good thing. Also as much as I enjoyed the tech, there were moments when I was left wanting more when it came to some of the details regarding how the process all worked. During my entire reading experience, I totally had iZombie in the back of my mind. It's a very similar concept - aside from the zombies and brain eating part, of course.

Overall, The Memory Detective features a good mystery and intriguing near future sci-fi elements. The cast of characters could definitely afford to be more well drawn and developed in order to connect better with them on the whole. The story has a lot of potential to be great, but it doesn't quite hit the mark, plus it isn't terribly unique. You may want to give T.S. Nichols first novel a try if you enjoy iZombie and Total Recall.

Thank you to NetGalley for the copy of this book! I was fascinated by the topic, and actually could visualize it happening, which is pretty scary. You can sell your life memories for a 10-year chance to do whatever, whenever, wherever you want, all expenses paid. I'm not sure if it was clear to the buyers what would happen at the end of the ten-years! The memories you saved up over your odyssey would be sold to the highest bidder, and your life would end. The original idea of harvesting memories came about to help solve crimes, thus the Memory Detective, who takes the memories of a crime victim (who is deceased of course) into his own head and then is able to see the crime as it happens, and solve it. Great idea, very successful! Unfortunately, the bad guys saw a way to use this to make money, selling off these amazing memories to the rich who never experienced anything like it! It was a fun, scary read, and I see sequel possibilities!

WOW! What a unique concept for a book! I always know that a book is really good when I read it during the day and at lunch at work.

This is a futuristic story about a world in which memories can be transferred to other people. Of course, this is done after someone is dead. Typically a relative will be given the first opportunity to get the memories, but the police have started depositing memories from murder victims into the mind of a detective, nicknamed the Memory Detective. Of course there are side effects, and he is the guinea pig for multiple memory deposits.

As any other new technology brings illegal uses, so does this one. A really scary one. But, you will have to read in order to find out.

I loved this book and you will too. I can't wait for a follow up book!

Detective Cole is a one of a kind person. He solves murders by seeing them through the eyes of the victim. Some say he should quit these mind games before he destroys himself, what they don’t know is that Cole is addicted to what he does. The mind-transfer technology that gives him this ability has made him hunger to take on his fourteenth case, a young woman who has had her head bashed in with a hammer.

Imagine you have lead a normal, albeit rich, life but you spent most of it working toward the opulent rewards you now enjoy. Only something is missing; you dream about all the things you never had a chance to do. Skiing in the Alps, snorkeling in the Bahamas, hunting wild animals in Africa, skydiving, are all adventures you have been denied. When this reality consumes you, you would pay anything to be able to relive your life and do the things you now realize you will never be able to do.

Mix these two together and you have a unique mystery that is well constructed, well written, and bizarre enough to keep you riveted to the pages until the last twist at the end.

There's just something about memory, lately. The subject has been all over the movies and tv. Maybe it's just what I've been coming across. And I'm mentioning this appropriately while reviewing the book that very much reads like a movie (or a tv show). Something along the lines of a bastard child of Total Recall and iZombie, both of which are book adaptations, actually. But this isn't as good as either and miles away from the superlative Black Mirror, which also often plays with the subject of memory. And this isn't terrible either. It's just average or slightly above average. In something like a new future or an alternate now memory transplants have been achieved and perfected. NYPD Detective Nicholas Jones, Nick originally, now Cole, solves crimes by inheriting memories of the victims, thus relegating old fashioned detecting and deductions to things of the past to an extent. Cole also holds a record for the amount of memories he stores and juggles in his brain and is also addicted to memories of others. When he has to solve a murder of a gay teenager, he becomes embroiled in a much larger crime. This isn't so much of a mystery, because whatever's mysterious in here can be seen a mile away. There are some suspense and thriller elements to make up for it. The writing is ok, occasionally just above ok (particularly character writing), but there isn't much in the way of originality, all the ideas are sort of versions of other ideas, which have already been done. If this was a tv show, which is easy enough to visualize, it would be wildly derivative of iZombie. Thing is...do you want to watch a kinda cute and quirky zombie girl creatively cook and eat victims' brains and then assist in solving their murders all done in a good naturedly funny fashion or a middle aged nonzombie nondescript cop do more or less the same thing but all too seriously. Well, now there's something for everyone apparently, the ending of this one is definitely sequel ready and who knows how many memories Detective Nick/Cole Jones can fit into his gaunt blonde cranium. Entertaining enough, relatively quick read, just nothing to particularly wow the readers. I'm not usually the one to recommend tv over books, but seriously just watch Black Mirror instead. Or just watch Black Mirror. It's so good. Thanks Netgalley.

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Everybody feels fear a little bit differently. Everyone feels love, joy, and sadness differently too, but it's not quite like fear. Fear is primal. It's like a fingerprint.
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This was an EXCELLENT read. I am captivated by memory and am a long-time fan of sci-fi and thriller/crime/detective stories, and this brought all of those together in a fascinating and unique way that had me on the edge of my seat from the first pages. Cole is a great protagonist. He's more than a little bit broken -
like all good protags are/should be to allow for great story development - and the blend of personalities, memories, and stories that he reveals throughout the course of the book are reflective of that. Yet somehow, he remains just hopeful enough to keep doing what he does - namely, take on the memories of the disenfranchised murder victims who have no other hope of seeing the mystery of their deaths solved. It's hard to imagine someone - even a dedicated detective with issues of his own - willfully taking on not only the most painful memories of these people's lives, but also the myriad avalanche of horribles that typically led up to that ultimate moment. Cole's psyche is fascinating, and so is the method by which the exceptionally talented T.S. Nichols reveals it in fits and starts...

This is a thriller par excellence. The pacing is spot-on; the blend of memories, backstories, and contemporary timeline is managed perfectly. The supporting cast is just colorful enough to provide urban camouflage for Cole's own overwhelming portion of this tale. This is definitely an author on my radar now...

cash? This is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in reverse. Instead of deleting memories of a specific person or event, you can get other’s memories. Mom died? Inherit her memories! Cousin lead a phenomenal life? Inherit those memories!
However, remember, inheriting the good also means inheriting the bad. And this is where Detective Cole Jones comes in. Cole is a cop who has a unique ability to take in many individuals’ memories without going crazy. He takes the memories of individuals who are murdered who have nobody else to take their memories. He uses the memories to figure out who killed the person. A strange side effect of taking in other’s memories is the addiction. Cole has not stopped taking in other’s memories not only to solve their murders, but because he gets a rush each time he is immersed in that person’s past.
His 14th case, however, is about to change everything. A young woman named Meg is murdered and he downloads her memories to figure out who bashed her head in with a hammer. What he was not expecting was what Meg’s memories would unlock. Unbeknownst to Meg, she overheard a much larger and exponentially more dangerous conspiracy of memory transfers. Someone is paying others to live their life to the fullest for a decade, and then kills them to transfer their memories to the highest bidder.
When Cole realizes what he has access too, he goes deeper into the rabbit hole to find out just how far this conspiracy goes and how many others are out there who are willing to pay anything to live a life they never had.

Memory Detective is a terrific read. It is a well-written, thoroughly plotted, story that explores a number of really interesting ideas about inheriting memories. Frank Herbert explored this in the Dune series with the Bene Gesserit reverend mothers inheriting all the memories of their maternal ancestors and the power and the horror of having all those other personas in your mind.

Nichols takes a slightly different approach. In his concept, memories are found in brain proteins and can be siphoned out via medical procedures within 48 hours after death and given to a recipient, often inherited by family members. While the story doesn’t really focus on the family member situation, it poses questions about use and misuse of memories. Cole, dubbed the Memory Detective, takes on memories of crime victims with the intention of finding their killers. To get those memories, he often has to struggle to find things that trigger the memories. As great as his purpose is, Cole has so many memories from so many people that he often gets lost in them and loses some if his own memories.

Of course, there’s another side to the coin which is what happens when someone comes up with the brilliant idea of purchasing memories, that is, rich folk with bland boring corporate boardroom lives can lose themselves in other lives, living it up as rock stars, race car drivers, surfers, as people dared to live out every adventurous or sexual fantasy imaginable. Are they purchasing better lives by buying these memories? What life is worthwhile or meaningful? Can you basically purchase someone else’s life and live vicariously through their memories like the ultimate virtual reality game? And, well, memories can only be harvested from the dead. Who would sell their memories in such a situation? At what price? At what cost?

Nichols does a great job of exploring all these ideas in the context of an action packed thriller.

Thanks to Random House- Alibi Books for providing a copy for review.

I was hoping for a more "Blade Runner" experience but this one not so much. A good read with a dazzling premise but as I read through I didn't get as much sparkle as I had hoped. I could tell there will be another, maybe it will make the leap

3.5 stars. In the last couple years I feel like I've read a lot of near-future noir-ish detective stories, and I was hoping this one would hold up with the best of them. The premise has the same feel as Thomas Sweterlich's Tomorrow and Tomorrow, or Brandon Sanderson's Snapshot. Unfortunately I don't think The Memory Detective ever evoked the same moody, dream-like atmosphere that it was going for (or maybe it was just me that wanted it!) The main character was difficult to care about, and the ending was a little anticlimactic.

Despite these things, I did find it a fairly entertaining read and an overall satisfying story. Thank you to the publisher, who provided the advance copy via Net Galley.

Different type of character, but enjoyed the plot. Keeps your interest

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Alibi for a digital galley of this novel.

Sometimes a book will have a premise that holds so much promise that I am disappointed when the writing craft doesn't carry the project into a totally enjoyable experience. That's what happened to me here. Thinking about a detective being able to solve crimes by having the victim's memories implanted into his own brain just hours after their death was a fantasy I couldn't resist. Naturally things couldn't go quite that smoothly because there wouldn't have been many pages in a book that told of only memories leading to arrests of criminals. I was fine with the system of memory recovery taking some time to play out. What wasn't so fine was my feeling of total ambivalence regarding the lead character, the memory detective. My reading of the personality of Cole, the detective, was more or less just a flat line. I know he had emotions because the author told me about them, but I didn't feel them coming from the character. In fact, I began to wait patiently for the twist in the story that would tell me that Cole was not human at all but was a robot. No, no spoilers here because Cole is not a robot. I would have liked him much better if he had been.

Through investigating the murder of a young woman - from Kansas, which seems to be very important for some reason - Cole and his colleagues become aware that there is a serial killer operating worldwide. Cole begins to use the memories transplanted from the young murder victim to investigate this case and finds himself going completely off the rails. I doubt that the author would describe it in that way but it sure looked that way to me. I know from the ending of this book that there will be at least one more novel featuring this main character. I wish him well.

Using memories harvested from recent murder victims, the Memory Detective is able to combine their memories with his detective skills to solve their murders. The author does an amazing job of making this seem not only very plausable but details the impact that it has on the detective who is having these memories injected into his brain.. I hope this is the beginning of a new series.

This one surprised me and I loved it! The plot sounded so unbelievable that I thought it would be difficult to take in, but it was superb! It had me gripped from the beginning. In a surgical procedure, memories can be transferred from a dead person to a live person. Cole is expert at this, having had many memories transferred to him. He is a cop, but the memories help him to catch killers. But it has made his personal life difficult as the memories become mixed up with his real memories. His relationship with Allie has disintegrated. He has become addicted to having memories transferred to him. He tries to break away from the memory transfers and go back to normal cop life. But will he succeed, can he do it? A memorable story.

This novel takes "I see dead people" to a whole new level! Instead of simply seeing dead people, detective Cole is able to see and immerse himself in the memories of those who have been murdered so he can catch the killers. But of course there is a downside to this futuristic society as a secretive company has capitalized on this memory transfer technique and is paying young twenty-somethings to create a wild, adventurous life--only to have their memories taken by millionaires. So lots of questions abound: what is a life worth? How far would you go to live through someone else's "better" memories? This novel has it all--power, money, corruption, sex...what more could you ask for? Even though I'm not a huge sci-fi fan, this novel won me over!

Set not too far into the future, but far enough that when you die, your memories can be retrieved from your brain and implanted in another person, sometimes family members. This instance is mainly about Cole, a police detective addicted to being given the memories of those who have been murdered, in order for him to find the murderer. Yes, not something many of us would choose to do.

I gave it 3 stars for being different, but really didn't care for Cole, who seemed to get his way by being a bully. By the end, he didn't seem a very good detective as he missed many clues. The last few chapters were a bit of desperately trying to pull it together in order to end it. All in all, disappointing.

Thanks to NetGalley for the chance to read this in exchange for an honest opinion.

When I first started reading this book I thought the premise was a little far fetched. But then I thought given all that is going on in this world, maybe it's not. I really enjoyed this book. It was fast paced and kept you on the edge of your seat. Very different from all the other books out there. Loved the main character. You could see how his job really affected his whole life and how tormented he was. Great from beginning to end. I am hoping that based on the ending there might be a sequel. Enjoy the book !

Cole is a homicide cop who takes his job very seriously. It’s sometime in the future, and Cole is able to access the memories of a murder victim through a rather lengthy surgical procedure. He’s able to witness the victim’s death, and thus solve it, but at what cost? As he pursue the killer of his latest victim. he begins to believe he’s being watched, and he’s right. A powerful corporation wants to use the technology Cole uses to solve murders for their own nefarious purposes, and they won’t stop at killing one cop to get what they need. So much of our lives are in the public domain now, how frightening would it be if people could read our minds, mine our memories? Nichols taps into the fear we all have in an age when nothing is secret or sacred