SPSFC3 Book Review - Yesterday Pill BY Iain Benson

Hunted. Disavowed. Wade will risk the world to save Cassandra. Anya knows Wade’s past and Cassandra’s future. Paladin wants Cassandra dead and will go to any length to ensure that happens. Cassandra has an uncanny ability to stay one step ahead. And so does Wade. If only he can remember. Anya abducts Wade and Cassandra at gunpoint from a restaurant, beginning a race around the Mediterranean and beyond. Realising Anya might hold the truth of his past before a seizure wiped his memory, Wade quickly learns more than he ever thought possible. Including a past he had with Anya. Finding why Paladin wants Cassandra dead, and how they keep finding them, will uncover a world-shattering secret.

This story reads like an action movie. The first scene starts late, and carries us off with Wade and Cassandra, as bemused as they are about exactly why they landed in a manhunt by a powerful and mysterious organisation. 

There’s very little info dumping in this story, which I liked: the author leads you by the nose nicely, dropping information off as the story unfolds. A particularly interesting detail for me is that Wade has amnesia from a previous event so he knows very little about his past - but he does know Anya, the operative who comes to save them and leads them in a high stakes car chase/escape across Europe and then into Ukraine. 

I liked that the author gives us enough details about the countries that the characters move through, just enough to give us an idea about the different places, not too much to slow the pace down. It feels authentic. Either the author is a globetrotter or he’s got decent research chops. The action stays high, too, with changes of cars, defusing of bombs, various passports, and lots of sleight of hand. 

I particularly liked the reference to time travel and how the author used it, bringing repeat conversations and detail to keep you grounded in which situation they were repeating. I thought that was rather clever. 

I accept that it is part of the plot - but I did feel as if Wade was entirely equipped to handle this situation. Of course, yes, he was an operative, he had been involved in this, but it felt as if he stepped up to lead the mission quite quickly, even though Anya was the person to initiate it, and Cassandra, the brains behind the story and the reason they are being chased, is the puppy that was placated and fobbed off. But that’s perhaps me being a curmudgeon. Someone has to take gold, and it’s usually the person best trained. The characters are sparsely sketched, as you would expect in this kind of plot, but the author does make good use of dialogue to keep the plot moving forward. 

I think the beginning was far stronger than the end. I was invested enough to keep going, but by the end I felt it was more lip service to tie the ends up than continuing what began as a very compelling story. While Paladin are pitched as this elite organisation, it did not feel as if they were a match for our dynamic duo, Anya and Wade. As they all worked together, at one point, I felt that was somewhat of a disservice. 

So in conclusion, this is an action story with time travel - it is modern, very fast paced, and more akin to a Tom Clancy or Frederick Forsyth story, just with time travel added in. It would make an excellent movie, and it’s attention grabbing enough to keep you reading to the end. It’s certainly a safe for now from me. Does it do enough to get to the next stages? I’m not sure. We shall see.