Blind Spots by Thomas Mullen

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.

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