Review DiSemblance by Shanae Branham

Title: DiSemblance

Author: Shanae Branham

Published: August 20th, 2012 (CreateSpace)

Pages: 369

Source: for review

Rating: 4 stars

Synopsis from Goodreads: Jason Tanner’s life has always been different from the ordinary citizen’s. It started when he was an infant and his parents were only teenagers. A computer science prodigy, Lloyd attended MIT but left a pariah in the eyes of the school’s dean—but a computer physics genius in the eyes of his primary investor. Then his theories and ideas created a holographic machine and their world shrunk as contact with the outside world became less and less frequent. A computer prodigy now himself, Jason is about to learn that the world never waits for you if you have the ability to change it: it will come for you.

Detective Bruce Durante has been handed the case of the Comfort Killer, a serial killer so named because he appears to abduct terminally ill patients before returning their corpses to their families in refrigerated coffins. When he picks up the trail, it leads straight to the home of Lloyd Tanner.
Jason has been living life through the world of Lloyd’s invention and wishing he could carry on a relationship with Boston, the beautiful girl next door. When his father is murdered and framed as the Comfort Killer, he is brought back to reality in a hurry. He is forced to destroy all of the planted evidence—and finds he is being targeted as the killer’s new fall guy. But the secrets of his father’s invention run deep and Jason, his brother Isaac,Boston, the Comfort Killer, and Detective Durante hurtle towards one another on a deadly collision course that leaves everyone’s life hanging in the balance.

An author told me once that when you say you liked a book more than you expected, it's not a compliment. I used to say it a lot, but after that I tried to avoid it. I always intended it as a compliment. As a reader you have a certain expectation for a book. If I think I'm going to like a book, I give it a try and read it. And sometimes a book takes you by surprise and you love it. 

So when I say I liked DiSemblance much more than I first thought, it's absolutely a compliment. When I first read the synopsis I liked it. I don't read many thrillers. I hate gruesome murders and all, so I mostly avoid this genre. But this book sounded interesting and I ended up loving it. 

There are murders, but there not gruesome in the way of much blood and lost limbs. There's a lot of tension and I just couldn't put it down. The first 50 pages I read on the train, the other 319 pages I read in one sitting. I just couldn't put it down. 

The story is told in two point of views. The first is Jason. His father invented the holodeck, a machine from Star Trek. (I hope I got this right, I've never watched Star Trek ;)). You put your body in the machine, your consciousness interfaces with the computer and your essence is digitally transferred. They can see everything they want. I imagined it as some kind of fantasy world. His father is murdered and Jason is one of the suspects. He has to run to save himself and his father's secret, how to build the holodeck. 

The other POV is Bruce, the inspector on this murder case. He knows all the evidence is pointing in Jason's direction, but he also knows something is off about it. 

These two point of views make the story full of tension. You don't know exactly when something is happening and you get different versions of the same story. As a reader you don't know what's reality and what isn't. You get confused, but in a good way. I just had to keep reading to find out what was really going on. 

Overall I thought this story was really good and I loved it! There were jus a few downsides: I wasn't pulled into the story immediately. I had the idea the beginning was a bit slow, but that might be my insight, because I was in a very noisy train when I read it. I would have loved if some of the chapters were a bit longer. I know that thrillers end at the point where the investigation is solved and everything is all right again (or not). And this is a downside for thrillers in general, because I just like to know a bit more about the character. What happens next? I know this isn't part of the story anymore,  but it's my personal preference.

It's a good story and if you love thrillers you'll definitely enjoy this book. For those who never read thrillers, but like to try: DiSemblance is a nice start!