Everyone has blind spots but what happens when you can no longer trust your own sight or memories?

In this sci-fi crime novel, we met someone who asks this very question. I’m not much of a sci-fi fan but I do love crime novels. This story pleasantly surprised me and I quite enjoyed it.

Seven years ago, everyone in the world went blind due to a catastrophic event, known as the Blinding.
Why? Technology was developed to give people vision. This was done by having small metal discs known as vidders implanted in every one. Homicide detective Mark Owens lands a case wher a scientist Ray Jensen was shot. The colleague’s bidder did not see the killer. Detective Owens wanders how this has happened. This suggests that someone has hacked the vidders. How was it done? It shows that this development may be a disaster when it comes to crime. Detective Owens investigates and discovers that the scientist was working on an expansion of the vidders to make them work better. Who killed the scientist?

The author has written a speculative thriller crime mystery novel with some science fiction in the novel. Grounded in police procedurals, this is both a whodunit and a cautionary tale about technology and government authoritarianism run amok. It actually scared me as I could “see” what could happen in the future. I enjoyed it very much.

Science fiction plus crime/detective story is original and unsettling.

When everyone in the world lost vision and became totally blind in a matter of months, the chaos and destruction resulted in a tremendous loss of life and an uncertain future for all who struggled to survive. Eventually scientists and business interests were able to restore sight through an invention known as the vidder. Implanted on the side of the head and able to interact with the brain, these devices gave people the ability to see again. As life returned slowly to something approaching normal (much like we experienced during and after the coronavirus pandemic), Detective Mark Owens makes a startling discovery. Someone is manipulating the vidders. What happens to world order when you can't trust what you see?

A unique concept developed into a narrative that was quite entertaining and interesting. I enjoyed the story even though it mostly played out as expected. I tend to like dystopian scenarios and this did not disappoint. The pace was good and there was plenty of action and a wide variety of characters. I could see this easily as a film adaptation.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press, Minotaur Books for this e-book ARC to read, review, and recommend. 3.5 stars rounded up.

Blind Spots takes place in an interesting world where everyone went blind gradually due to a virus, yet were able to create "vidders" to restore vision -- and of course the rollout of that was choppy; similar to the COVID vaccines in our world -- even including a group opting to stay blind.
Our hero is a police officer/widower who gets drawn in to reports of people appearing only as shadows -- their version of deepfake technology. This is at first passed off to drug/stress-related hallucinations but quickly becomes much more than that when he sees them himself at an attack on a tech executive with vital information.
The novel is very interesting in both the main story and the related aspects of dealing with the aftermath of the chaotic times and roles of police and others in power; as well as the perspectives on that.
The pacing is mostly good until the end, where there is a ton to unravel/reveal along with keeping the action going. Overall, a fun and thought provoking read.

I have finished reading Blind Spots by Thomas Mullen. Setting is in a world surviving the loss of sight for all humans. Vision slowly degraded, leaving people helpless and many perished. Science has created vidders , that attach to a person’s skull and gives them a semblance of sight. Owen is a policeman attempting to forget the horrors of first losing sight and the death of his wife. But everything is not as it seems.His sister is living in a community that do not believe in using the vidders. Crime is on the rise and now people are reporting seeing dark spots. crazy!

Can you imagine a world where no one can see? Technological advances have allowed us to use technology to live our pre-sight lives but when what you see is controlled by programming, are you really seeing the truth? Thomas Mullen’s latest, 𝙱𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚂𝚙𝚘𝚝𝚜, weaves a story around this situation.

𝙱𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚂𝚙𝚘𝚝𝚜 was a roller coaster ride. With characters that are haunted by the past and the present, it is a dark book that promised a big picture that blew my mind. Mark Owens, the protagonist, is a detective, who has been on the force long enough to have been a cop during the Blinding (when everyone loses sight). In the present time, it’s been a few years since his wife’s death and he has moved on to a causal relationship with a colleague. Maintaining peace and order in times of food shortage and blindness had been mentally exhausting and something Owens is still reeling in. Owens has heard many stories that convicts use to get out of trouble. But when he himself witnesses a murderer fleeing a scene but his vision blacks out the figure, he starts to wonder if the tales he had heard had truth in them. An intricate plot of suspicion, redacted people and unbelievable circumstances ensues. I love the details in this book!

Thanks to the publisher for a review copy of this book and for connecting with Thomas for an interview!

A crime book set in a world straight out of Black Mirror?! SIGN ME UP!
The preview hooked me but the actual book delivered even more than I expected. Fascinating setting and technological settings with believable characters and a great mystery. All boxes checked! 5 stars.

Blind Spots by Thomas Mullen
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This was a sci-fi crime novel. Seven years ago everyone in the world went blind. This period of time has been named “The Blinding” and bad things happened then, until the tech giants were able to create the technology for people to have sight again. Now a scientist has been murdered and the only witness has an interesting and unbelievable story.
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This book had me thinking a lot about what life would be like if I were to lose my vision. I know I would have support from loved ones to help me settle into my new normal. But for everyone to all lose vision at the same time would indeed be chaos. We follow a detective named Owens for a good part of the story. He is a good detective and I was rooting for him to figure out what was going on.
I kind of wanted more than this story gave me. We never got an explanation for WHY everyone went blind and I felt like that was a plot hole that bugged me a little bit.
There was also a religious type group in the story and I felt like they didn’t add enough to the story for the parts they were in it. Just something was missing to tie that part together.
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3.5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 I loved the idea of the story but I had those couple things that were keeping me from loving it.

An unknown agent spread around the world causing everyone to completely lose their eyesight. Fast forward several years and they have discovered a way to make people see again by implanting a transistor in their brain.
Not everyone believes in this science and some have chosen to remain in the dark. The police had first dabs on the new sightseeing goggles and they had bad cops taking advantage of those without sight.
Now it appears that they have dark blobs killing people and nobody is able to see them to tell who they are. The MC must figure out who is behind this and stop them before they can take over the world.

This was a great dystopian with loads of mysterious twists and turns that I didn’t see coming.

What a great book! I really enjoyed this book. I'm so glad that I got the chance to read it early and will definitely be recommending it to multiple people who enjoy these types of novels! I enjoyed the characters and enjoyed the writing by this author. I'm excited to see what the author comes out with next as I'll definitely be reading it! Thank you to the publisher for my early copy of this book

Published by Minotaur Books on April 4, 2023

Most of us depend on vision more than any other sense to perceive the world. As a character in Blind Spots explains, visual perceptions are often faulty. Eyewitness evidence in criminal prosecutions is among the least reliable forms of evidence because perceptions and memory are subject to error and bias. Blind Spots builds on that knowledge to imagine a world in which the questionable data we receive from our eyes gives way to a new form of “seeing” that is subject to manipulation.

Blind Spots imagines a near future in which everyone in the world lost their vision for a reason that scientists have not discovered. The disability spread like a pandemic. During a period known as The Blinding, chaos ensued. Scientists who had been working on a form of artificial vision developed an implant that allows a form of vision. How the implant works is a bit blurry (it purports to combine radar and GPS to transmit images to the brain) but the device (known as a vidder) also gives companies a chance to beam advertisements directly to the user’s consciousness. Naturally, the company that developed and markets vidders is making a fortune.

I’d rather be blind than forced to watch ads, and that’s a choice some people have made. Some of those people have joined a religion or cult called Inner Sight based on their rejection of vidders. Inner Sight encourages people to accept blindness as a means of stepping back from the “deceitful, materialist, immoral world.” A nefarious company is building on vidder technology to create an improved experience that allows users to change how their appearance is perceived. Okay, I might put up with advertising if a gadget can make women mistake me for George Clooney.

Before The Blinding, while he was a teen, Mark Owens visited a monastery for a couple of days. He was impressed by the stress relief associated with silence. When Owens removes his vidder and spends time with Inner Sight, he experiences a similar epiphany. Eyesight is wonderful but it might also cause the sighted to miss perceptions that come from other senses; the whistles of birds, the gentle caress of a breeze. Not to mention the ability to fight with sticks like the old blind guy on the television show Kung Fu. Thomas Mullen borrows the blind stick fighting for an action scene near the novel’s conclusion.

Owens is a cop. He was married to Jeannie. He’s been a mess since she killed herself. He blames himself for her death because he was less than a supportive husband. Some of his colleagues, including the one he’s sleeping with, wonder whether he might have killed Jeannie. Owens’ partner, Jimmy Peterson, seems to be the only person who will stand up for him. Owens is under investigation by the Truth Commission for wild and violent actions by people in positions of authority during The Blinding, but the investigation seems to be a pretext to cover up something more sinister. The plot involves a conspiracy that will be furthered by an assassination, presumably shielding conspirators from the light that the Truth Commission hopes to shine on their misdeeds.

Nobody believes Owens when he claims that crimes are being committed by people he only perceives as black blurs. Is a glitch in his vidder preventing him from identifying suspects or is he lying? Owens has little help as he works to answer the question and solve the novel’s several connected murders.

Futuristic cop fiction is a subgenre at the intersection of science fiction and crime fiction. Blind Spots is a bit weak on the science (The Blinding is never explained and the attempt to explain vidders is unconvincing, particularly when they start making holograms) but science aside, the story works as a crime novel. While the many-branched plot is a bit convoluted, it all comes together in the end. Owens is sympathetic in the traditional role of troubled cop under suspicion. Action scenes give the plot some pep. Despite a determined effort, Mullen falls a bit short of making a meaningful statement with the blindness theme, but Blind Spots does manage to tell an entertaining story.

RECOMMENDED

TL;DR

Blindspots by Thomas Mullen follows a detective trying to solve a murder where the murderer is able to hide themself from sight. How do the police catch someone who can’t be seen? Highly recommended.

Disclaimer: The publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Any and all opinions that follow are mine alone.

Review: Blindspots by Thomas Mullen

During my junior year of college, I had three invasive surgeries and a handful of laser surgeries on my right eye, specifically, the retina. For a long time, I was legally blind in my right eye, but as the retina stretched, my sight improved enough to not be legally blind but not well enough for me to be able to read out of it. In my right eye, I have lost a lot of vision, and what remains is distorted with areas of blindness. Since that time, I began to wonder if I would go blind some day. How would I adjust? Would I adjust? Due to the surgeries, I had to adapt to reduced vision, not a total loss of it, and this upended my world. I came close to leaving college. I spent two weeks face down for hours everyday. I had to change my driving habits; I couldn’t read as much as I needed to rest my ‘good’ eye more often. Those are easy changes compared to what a complete loss of vision would mean, and I had people to help me through that change. What would happen if the entire world completely lost their vision? In Blindspots by Thomas Mullen, humanity has gone through just such an event. Mark Owens, the main character, relays to us how society broke down as over the course of a few months, all of humanity lost their sight. In Owens’s world, adaptive technology is available to restore vision. Yet someone is using that technology to commit murder. Owens is on the case even if he can’t see who the murderer is.

Mark Owens survived as a cop during a worldwide epidemic in which the entire human population went blind. This event was known as the Blinding, and it changed society. Even children born after the Blinding lost their sight. But a technology company had a solution. They had devices that allowed people to see again. But these devices came months or years after people lost their sight. Panic, riots, all the darkest parts of humanity emerged during the Blinding as people feared the worst. The police had the impossible task of enforcing the law without sight. Tragedies happened. Once the tech company was able to start producing ‘vidders’, the devices that allow humans to see, the military and police were prioritized. Naturally this created distrust between the people and law enforcement. After all, who watches the watchers, right?

Mark Owens lived through this and has the mental scars to prove it. Soon after the Blinding, his wife, a successful and famous artist, committed suicide. It left Mark devastated. The loss of his wife Jeanie follows him everywhere, and it overshadows his relationships. For Mark, his life has become the job. He’s a cop, through and through, dyed blue. When his main suspect in a murder case begins to talk about black spots covering the real murderer, Mark is skeptical. After all, many criminals blame their vidders for not working. But soon, Mark experiences the same redactions from his vision. At the same time, the new president has called for a Truth Commission to investigate law enforcement’s activities during the Blinding, and Internal Affairs has its eye on Mark. Bodies begin to pile up around Mark, and to his fellow cops, it looks like he’s a murderer. But Mark knows that someone out there has the technology to remove themselves from people’s sight. Can he find the real killer before his friends and colleagues take him out?

Blindspots by Thomas Mullen is a third person novel based mostly in Mark’s perspective. Other characters get their own chapters, but Mark carries the story. Mark is a great character; he’s haunted by the past, loyal to the badge, and broken by the death of his wife. The chapters tend to be short and fast-paced. Mullen throws a lot at the reader but never overwhelms. This book read like a thriller with science fiction elements, and it would make a great movie.

Science Fiction, Thriller, or Both?

Genre labels only have meaning for marketing purposes. Mysteries/Thrillers and Science Fiction have a long history of genre entanglement. They are often my favorite science fiction stories because the mystery element focuses on exploring the science fiction aspect. Here, the opposite is true. The science fiction is the set dressing that allows Mullen to explore how policing would work in a world where no one can trust their vision. Mullen takes Owens to uncomfortable places, and with it, he asks some interesting questions about our justice system. How does one operate a firearm without being able to see targets? Why do eye witnesses carry such weight in court when we know eye witness testimony is extensively flawed?

Mullen also explores how heavily dependent people, in general, and law enforcement, in particular, are upon technology that is hackable. As society progresses towards more and more computational devices, this is sort of inevitable. Humans are already bad at being able to judge ‘good’ information from ‘bad’. When an information stream becomes one of our senses, what are the consequences? Mullen explores one in this novel. There is hacking, drugs, mods, and firmware/software updates. The focus is a bit narrow; I don’t think Mullen went far enough into the dystopian aspect of relying on a single company to help us see. This isn’t a criticism; it’s another way of differentiating between thriller and science fiction. Mullen’s interest is in how it affects the job, and it turns out that being unable to trust your own vision is devastating.

The Inner Sight Commune

With the introduction of vidders, reactionary movements against the technology rose up. One such is the Inner Sight Commune. This commune is a form of a Luddite society. They eschew the vidders for a more natural approach to life. Yes, this means they are all completely without vision. They work and live in a community of the blind with some proselytizing on street corners. Mark Owens’s sister joined the Inner Sight Commune, and he visits her in the novel. They have a contentious relationship at best. Owens thinks she’s a nut job for giving up her sight. But maybe the Inner Sight people have a point. One giant technology corporation is responsible for vidder tech, and the world is at its mercy essentially. (Though, let’s acknowledge that foreign nations – adversaries and allies – would ramp up their industrial espionage so as to be able to control their own source. China, North Korea, and other totalitarian states would want to be able to control the ability to censor the information their public sees.)

This is a fantastic bit of world building, and it’s spot on. Humans are wonderfully complex; there’s always a certain percentage that are contrary, often for contrariness sake. This commune is a bit of an absurd extension of the anti-vaxxer argument. However, Mullen grounds the Inner Sight’s reasoning in actual reason and not mental illness. It’s a beautiful take on humanity, and I think Mullen treats the commune with respect and fairness. He could have easily portrayed the group as a Qanon type community, but instead he postulated serious objections people would have to such a technology. It’s well done and adds depth and complexity to an already interesting world.

Google Glass and Censorship

When I was reading this, I couldn’t help but think of Google Glass and augmented reality. In theory, these would be great additions to the human technical arsenal. In practice, I’m skeptical, and after reading Blindspots, I’m even more skeptical. Humans already give corporations enough access to our eyes and attention. But they only control so much of our vision. With some sort of glasses or ‘vidder’ type device, humans would give corporations access to all of our vision. Think of the spam and ads on the internet now, and imagine them being a constant in your eyes. You take your daughter out to the swing in the park, and ads for diapers, daycare, TV shows, new cars, etc. constantly flood your vision. For a yearly subscription, you could opt out of most ads. Then someone could hack your vision and lock you out of your device unless you pay them in bitcoin. Your competitor could hack your vision and see what product you’re developing. Florida wouldn’t have to go after librarians; it would just turn off your visual access to LGBTQ+ books. Texas would ban the New York Times inside its borders. The Chinese government could blind dissidents.

Google used to have the phrase “Don’t Be Evil” as part of its code of conduct, but the company removed it. It’s an ominous change to their code of conduct, but it’s one that matters publicly. Google is now prepared to accept evil deeds, and it’s possible to look at their acquiescence to the censorship requests of governments as proof they were correct to change their motto. They’re already too big of a company that control too much of the world’s data and communications; imagine them controlling vision as well. Mullen has posited a truly scary world in which this could happen. As the old saying goes, power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Google has shown its willingness to alter its code of conduct when profit is on the line. In a world where a giant corporation controls sight, it would control everything. Politicians don’t conform; turn off their device. Competitor is making their own device; edit out their ability to see their work. It’s easy to extrapolate from Google’s real world actions to a giant companies actions when they have power over our very sight itself.

Curing Blindness?

Blindspots is a book about a disability, blindness. Any time a book puts forward a cure for a disability, it treads volatile ground. Too often ‘cures’ for disabilities are thinly veiled ‘fixes’ that imply disabled people are broken. Mullen doesn’t do that here. In his world, there are people who refuse the cure, and there are people who reject the cure. Because in reality, it’s not a cure. Mullen’s vidders are simply adaptive devices for blind people to manage their world. The underlying lack of vision isn’t ‘fixed’ or ‘cured’. This is an important distinction.

Having people who reject the adaptive technology is a smart touch. While the Inner Sight Commune has a bit of a religious/cult-ish vibe to it, it provides a very real service and community for people who wish to be simply as they are. Owens’s opinions about them aren’t the best, but that’s okay. He’s one character, and other characters represent the choice to live with their blindness well. The Inner Sight Commune depicts a flourishing community of blind individuals. Mullen makes it easy to see that Owens’ opinion is flawed and biased.

I’d be interested in reading critiques from the blind community about this book. Because in the real world, blindness doesn’t imply total lack of vision, but in Mullen’s world, the Blinding removes sight from everyone. I think Mullen portrays blindness well and gives a well rounded view of characters living with a lack of sight.

Conclusion

Thomas Mullen’s Blindspots is an excellent mystery/science fiction thriller. It raises some excellent points about technology and vision while giving readers a sympathetic character in Mark Owens. I was glued to the pages waiting to see who exactly was behind the blindspots. If you pick up Blindspots by Thomas Mullen, you won’t want to put this book down. Highly recommended.

Special thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

I was a little hesitant going in because sci-fi is not my thing.

I liked this and I thought I wasn't going to. Everyone goes blind and over the course of several months chaos, destruction and la ot of deaths ensued. Then an enterprising company invented "vidders" a revolutionary high tech virtual reality gear that allows people to regain eyesight but it's very very expensive .

This story deals with inequality, mixed motives, prejudices, and the desire to resolve problems even if the means is improper.

I am a fan of Thomas Mullen. His last series is one of my favorite series. I was a little apprehensive in reading this one because of the sci-fi element, but I love when authors step out of their normal genres and give me something a little different.
This one is definitely different. The thing with this book is with the way technology keeps advancing, I don't think we are that far off from it happening. Maybe not the exact thing, but the government and tech companies deceiving us and controling us in ways we didn't see until it's too late. Heck, it's already happening. Look at social media.... But I digress.
This was an interesting and throught provocing sci-fi mystery. While I mostly enjoyed it, It was a little too drug out for me. By the middle of the book, I was bored and ready for the end.

I was so impressed by Darktown, so was very interested in reading Thomas Mullen's new novel, Blind Spots. This was a fascinating story! The Blinding was a time when the people across the world progressively went blind over just a couple of months. In time, a technological device called a Vidder was created and when attached allowed the wearer to "see" by downloading information directly to their brain. What would happen though, if someone hacks into the device distorting what the person is actually seeing.
Reeling from their own personal impacts of the Blinding, the police force is trying to rebuild the trust of the public after some mishandling of the situation when the Blinding first started, and before they had the benefit of the Vidders. Detective Mark Owens is coming to the realization something might not be right with the devices and recognizes what a nightmare that would be for law officers.
I had to really focus in the beginning of the book to fully comprehend what was happening. But once I understood what the Blinding was and what Vidders were and how they worked, the story flowed. It's an action-packed novel with quite a few characters to keep track of and dual storylines.
While partially sci-fi, there is also mystery, crime, greed, loyalty and heartache. And while it had a futuristic feel, it didn't seem unrealistic in light of the pandemic that we all just lived through.
I alternated between the ebook and the audio which was narrated by Gary Tiedemann who did an amazing job. The narration started off slowly, laying the groundwork so it was easy to follow. And picked up as the pace of the story progressed.
Thank you to NetGalley, Minotaur Books and MacMillan Audio for the advanced copy of the ebook and audiobook, respectively.

The author imagines a world where over the course of weeks and months, everyone in the world went blind (The Blinding). Chaos ensued, with considerable destruction and lots of deaths. An enterprising company, EyeTech, invented a technology (vidders) that allowed people to regain their sight; think souped up virtual reality headgear. However, the technology was pricey and the roll-out was slow, starting with those deemed most in need of sight (such as medical personnel), as well as government officials and law enforcement. Today, most Americans have vidders, although access is not as high in many other countries. There are also groups who refuse to use vidders, embracing "Inner Sight" and heightening their other senses. The current administration has created a "Truth Commission" to investigate the events that followed The Blinding and punish those who abused their authority.

The main character, Mark Owens, is a police officer in the Major Crimes division. He was an officer during The Blinding and is being called to testify before the Truth Commission. His sister, Sarah, is an Inner Sight devotee, which is a source of significant restriction. Owens is dating a fellow officer, but the relationship is somewhat tenuous because of the tragic death of his wife several years earlier. Adding to the tension, Owens and his partner get assigned to investigate the murder of a scientist, and the only witness, a fellow scientist who is both colleague and rival, claims that the killer was a black blur. Claiming that your vidder malfunctioned is a convenient excuse for anyone not wanting to admit what they had seen or done, and Owens does not believe the witness. However, he will later see a "black blur" himself, when the witness/suspect is killed. The alleged black blur, as well as other incidents, make Owens appear unhinged. He soon finds himself caught up in a conspiracy that he needs to unravel, and which will call into question the truth of past events, as well as the benefits and dangers of technology.

The story deals with inequalities, prejudice, assumptions, mixed motives, and the desire to have certain problems resolved, even if the means of doing so are improper, so long as the means utilized are kept hidden and people can pretend that the "system" is "just."

Mark Owens lives in a futuristic world where the world’s population went blind in the span of 75 days, a nightmarish situation that is now the new norm. Science came up with a way to see through “vidders” a mechanical appendage that interacts with our brains to let humans “see” again, but that wasn’t before the world suffered so much turmoil.

Mark Owens has been a cop/detective before and after the event that nearly ended the world and he’s had to live with the memories of policing through the darkness and chaos before sight was “restored”. Now, there’s a new threat when a murder witness claims that her colleague was murdered by a dark spot, a void in the vision of the vidders. Mark and his partner have serious doubts over the validity of her story, but when Mark witnesses the phenomenon with his own “eyes” he starts a dangerous investigation. His teammates and partner doubt his sanity, but Mark knows what he saw.

On the personal side of things, Mark is still reeling from his wife’s suicide two years earlier while navigating a romantic entanglement with a newer officer, Amira. She feels his grief and regret, and wonders if they have a future. Amira also becomes embroiled in the investigation and isn’t quite sure who to believe.

Blind Spots was part science fiction/end-of-the-world-scenario, part mystery with just a little bit of romance. It was an original concept, one that was easy to picture and settle into even with all the futuristic elements. Having the whole world succumb to blindless within the span of 75 days was an unsettling prospect, but not one that felt totally out of the realm of possibility after the pandemic we’ve lived through. I was rooting for Mark as he searched for the truth as he battled the doubt and suspicion.

It was an engrossing mystery, one that kept me guessing. It all comes together in a satisfying conclusion, but it left me thinking of the real-life possibilities. The what ifs…

I alternately listened to and read an e-copy and can recommend either version. Gary Tiedemann is a new-to-me-narrator and I thought he did a wonderful job performing all characters, male and female. A definite recommend! I listened at my usual 1.5x normal speed.

I’m not normally into dystopian books but this concept was interesting to me. This book is very well written & I really liked the Owen’s character. Recommend!

I would like to thank NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

This was a very intriguing story. I have not read stories from this author before, but I will definitely be looking for more of his works. He’s kept me on the edge of my seat, trying to turn pages as fast as I could, and wondering what was gonna happen next. Could there possibly be more to this story?


I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.

(4.5 stars) Blind Spots is a terrific book, plain and simple. The premise is that the world has suffered from a rapidly-spreading virus which has blinded the whole world’s population, known as The Blinding. Some tech companies had been working on devices to help “ordinarily” blind people see again, so they were able to produce a device quickly that enabled people to “see” again. These devices were called “vidders” and the first ones to get them were, of course, government people, military, police, first responders, and so forth; eventually most people could get them if they could afford them - exacerbating an already have/have-not society. It is now seven years since The Blinding and society has evolved somewhat to deal with the challenges. Some people have retreated from the technology and refuse to get vidders. The book opens with a bang, with police being given permission to use their x-ray technology to take down an illicit arms dealer. In some ways this is a basic mystery/thriller, but with lots of twists due to the widespread blindness and vidder technology. Along with a great story, we have a fair amount of social commentary: how much should we rely on technology; privacy issues and government tracking; police corruption; and more.

Mark Owens is the main character, a police detective who has been on the force since before The Blinding and regrets some actions he took during the chaos that ensued. He also lost his artist wife to suicide and is guilt-stricken over what he feels was his role in her misery. He gets assigned to a case where a scientist is murdered and the only witness says she only saw a black blur. “My vidder malfunctioned” is a convenient excuse for people who don’t want to tell the police anything, so Owens doesn’t believe the witness. Until… well, I won’t spoil the book for you!

With all we’ve been through in the past few years, this story hit uncomfortably close to home. It wasn’t hard to imagine the chaos and misery with such a situation. And it’s not hard to imagine people or corporations being able to manipulate video data - they’re doing it now in some instances - it’s called a “deep fake.”

Blind Spots has a couple of meanings in this story - The Blinding event itself, of course, and also people having a “blind spot” about certain things or certain people. The author made me very aware of the many ways we use visually-related words in common speech, such as “Look, we got off to a rough start” or “I’m seeing someone” meaning you’re dating someone, and so forth.

I bounced between the audiobook and the ebook for this title, which was very convenient. The audiobook was narrated by Gary Tiedemann, who did a great job with all the voices.

Thank you to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance reader copy of this book and to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to an advance copy of this audiobook. All opinions are my own.