Upgrade by Blake Crouch

 

Blake Crouch keeps getting better with every book he writes. His latest, Upgrade, continues that trend. Logan Ramsay works for the Gene Protection Agency. The agency tracks genetic scientists who may be doing illegal work. Much genetic research was outlawed after the Great Starvation, a worldwide phenomenon that devastated crops, an unintentional side effect of gene manipulation caused by Logan's mother. While on a raid, Logan is exposed to something. Soon he finds himself with improved memory and other mental and physical improvements. Government agents lock him up at a black site and begin running test after test on him. When someone unexpectedly breaks Logan out of the facility, he learns that his mother had plans for improving humanity and the human condition. Plans that only he can move forward or halt.

Blake Crouch is always asking the big questions about the intersection of technology and humanity. He makes it easy to understand the temptations that technological advances represent both on an individual as well as a global scale. 

Upgrade presents great moral dilemmas and plays them out in thrilling fashion. Logan is on the run from a government seeking to capture him while he is also trying to stop a plan that could result in an untold number of deaths. He also has to wrestle with whether the changes he is undergoing are destroying his own humanity and ultimately put his own dangerous plan in motion.

No one is better than Crouch at portraying the moral complexity of science and technological possibilities. He does this against the backdrop of a thrilling action story that not only keeps you guessing every step of the way but creates the nagging question of whether or not you want him to succeed. 

Great characters, thrilling action, and a brilliant concept make this one of the best books of the year. One that will have you thinking long after you close the book. We need more stories like this. Upgrade is Blake Crouch at his best.

I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher.