THE FORGOTTEN GIRL BY RIO YOUERS – BOOK REVIEW

Telekinesis thriller in which a young man has a girlfriend deleted from his memory
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 If you’re looking for a paranormal thriller, with telekinesis and psychic abilities as the driving force, then The Forgotten Girl is very solid entertainment which could find success beyond the horror scene. It’s in the same ballpark as Stephen King’s Firestarter (without the fire-starting) and with a smattering of The Dead Zone thrown in for good measure. Even if is not in the same league as those giants of the genre it’s still worth a look and fun to spent a few evenings with.
 
The novel opens with professional-busker Harvey Anderson being snatched by two very nasty heavies. They beat the crap out of him, asking him very confusing questions he quite simply does not have the knowledge to answer. Harvey has been single for years, the heavies (nicknamed Brickhead and Jackhammer) pummel him to find out about his non-existent girlfriend Sally Stirling. Swearing this is mistaken identity, Brickhead and Jackhammer show Harvey the long-standing lease of his apartment which he shares with Sally Stirling. Harvey is confused!
 
After spitting out a couple of teeth Harvey claims “I think I’ve been brainwashed.” He most certainly has. The bullies reveal Sally Stirling (or was it Miranda Farrow?) had a very unique ability; she can selectively erase memories from a person’s brain. It turns out that Harvey and Sally had very happily lived together for several years and that the boss of the two heavies was very interested in what they got up to, and more specifically, where she disappeared to. 
 
Enter Dominic Lang AKA ‘The Spider’ who was a really great character and, sadly, did not have enough page time in the novel enough as he simply oozed evil and the join he felt inflicting pain bleeds onto the page. As if the torture was not enough; after taking his beating Dominic Lang brings a whole new meaning to the word pain. He has the psychic ability to probe within the minds of individuals (like a psychic rape) and uncover memories, either forgotten or deliberately. This sequence was really excellent and is portrayed like a spider crawling within the brain of Harvey.
 
“He crawled into my mind. Spider.
He was cold and slick and plump”.
 
Man, this was nasty, but a fine description of a horrible and beyond freaky experience which stays with poor old Harvey long after Lang has exited his brain.
 
The Spider has been pursuing Sally for nine long years, I’m not going to say why, but his obsession and his need for revenge runs very, very deep. Once Lang starts digging in the brain of Harvey he uncovers;” a faint vision of a dancing girl” and realising the girlfriend whom he does not remember is in mortal danger. Harvey then tries to find her before Lang and his heavies can get to her. The Forgotten Girl starts off with what I have described, builds up well towards a climax which took too long to arrive, and when it finally did, was slightly underwhelming.
The Forgotten Girl was written in the first person “I” tense and seen entirely from Harvey’s point of view and I felt this limited the plot somewhat and not enough happened to justify 460 pages. Maybe at a certain point I just got bored of Harvey?  Although Harvey notes;” I’m not a coward” he is somewhat of a bumbler who is put through both the emotional and physical wringer and after a while tested my patience. If you split this book into thirds, the middle section was mediocre and meandered somewhat until Sally Stirling makes her long awaited appearance and the story rediscovers its momentum. Along the way other cool characters are introduced which have different powers, such as having the ability to break bones through telekinesis. Ouch.  
 
There are other story strands featuring Harvey’s conspiracy theory obsessed father (who does remember Sally), other murders Harvey is implicated in and some clever flashback scenes. However, overall I was unconvinced how much they added to what was quite a long book. The backstory of Dominic Lang and his involvement with Sally was by far the most interesting and might have merited further investigation, even if the secret government organisation was similar to Firestarter. However, as the book was told from Harvey’s point-of-view that was not possible
 
The Forgotten Girl was a solid ride featuring a good blend of action, parapsychology and thriller, but it reminded me of lots of other better books. Incidentally there are a couple of big-name authors on the promotional material and cover who really over-hyped this novel, but I am sure it will have its fans, both horror and thriller readers.
 
Tony Jones

THE FORGOTTEN GIRL BY RIO YOUERS

A dark mystery unfolds in Rio Youers's riveting tale, for fans of Paul Tremblay and Joe Hill.
Harvey Anderson is a twenty-six-year-old busker who enjoys his peaceful life, but everything is turned upside down when he is abducted and beaten by a group of nondescript thugs. Working for a sinister man known as “the spider”, these goons have spent nine years searching for Harvey's girlfriend, Sally Starling. Now they think they know where she lives. There's only one problem: Sally is gone and Harvey has no memory of her. Which makes no sense to him, until he discovers that Sally has the unique ability to selectively erase a person's memories. An ability she has used to delete herself from Harvey's mind. But emotion runs deeper than memory, and so he goes looking for a girl he loves but can't remember... and encounters a danger beyond anything he could ever imagine.
Political corruption and manipulation. A serial killer's dark secrets. An appetite for absolute, terrible power... For Harvey Anderson, finding the forgotten girl comes at quite a cost.

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