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Brian Finney has won awards for his biography of Christopher Isherwood and for his debut suspense novel, Money Matters. His writings have appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review, The Los Angeles Times, The LA Weekly, The Irish Times, The Chicago Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle and numerous other journals and anthologies. He has published seven nonfiction books and two novels. Money Matters (2019), his first novel, was a finalist for the American Fiction Awards in the Best New Fiction category. The second is Dangerous Conjectures (2021), a novel featuring a couple living in the Bay Area whose lives are threatened by the spread of the coronavirus and the rise of conspiracy theories. In his former life he was a literature professor in London University and several universities in Southern California. He now calls Venice, California home. You can visit him at www.bhfinney.com
Reviewed by Tammy Ruggles for Readers' Favorite
Dangerous Conjectures, by the award-winning Brian Finney, is a compelling psychological thriller and a conspiracy lover's dream. This powerful story unfolds in the Bay Area against the backdrop of the pandemic. Here you will be immersed in a family saga full of sin, backbiting, and conspiracy theories that couldn't possibly be true. Or could they? Protagonist Adam is a computer scientist perplexed by those who follow the President regarding conspiracy theories. He makes QAnon a focus of his investigation into them. But what he discovers leads him to the White House, which could mean tampering with the next presidential election. Another protagonist, Julia, his wife, fears COVID-19 and wants to know more about the fake claims of cures found online, but her husband hates the idea of them. Then a third major player enters the picture; Julia's ex-boyfriend, who has a violent side. She finds her life falling apart, and the question is, can she ever put it back together again?
This taut plotline takes on the themes of life in modern America during the pandemic and the era of misinformation. Finney's style is magnetic, and his way with characters will have you invested in their conflicts. You care about what happens to them, and by the time the ex comes into play, everything seems all too real. The author's sense of pace is just perfect for a psychological thriller. The drama charges forward and doesn't let up, and the psychological aspects and political threads are intriguing. You'll feel connected to the plot points with a feeling of familiarity; after all, who hasn't been touched by the pandemic in one way or another? And you have a front-row seat to the conspiracy arena, which I personally find extremely entertaining. There are some adult sexual situations, dynamic dialogue, and high energy. If you're looking for a potent family drama with compelling characters and a conspiracy-based plot that would have Alex Jones turning the pages, you have to read Dangerous Conjectures by Brian Finney.
