The Minders by John Marrs is a mind tripping science fiction adventure. It takes five strangers implants them with all of Britain’s secrets, they are provided with unlimited resources and must stay away from all family and friends for five years, and also their is a secret organization called the Hacking Collective that would kill for the information in their heads. The twist and turns are steady through out. The writing is not mind blowing, but clever and creative. We get the POV of all five minders, and we access get redacted notes from the top secret government meetings about the minders. This novel is very engaging and hard to put down. This is my third John Marrs book, and I’ve enjoyed every one so far. Marrs is a writer who constantly thinks out side of the box to create unique stories and worlds. The Minders is loosely connected to previous novels The One and The Passengers, with a couple plot lines form those books discussed lightly and the same villain the Hacking Collective are in each. I don’t know why the books are not called the Hacking Collective (trilogy/series). John Marrs wrote my second favorite book of last year, What Lies Between Us. Thanks to Netgalley and Berkley Publishing group for letting read the ARC of the Minders. The Minders was published last year in England, but published on February 16th 2021 as a new release in America.

The Plot: Five people have all passed a test or so they, think one guys autistic son took it, which causes problems down the line, designed to determine brain mapping and have been chosen to be minders, having a DNA chip with all of Britains secrets implanted in your brain. The minders are Flick, Charlie, Sinead, Emilia and Bruno, with each person having a reason to turn their brain into a computer and be away from family and friends for five years. One individual we don’t get a background as the program has wiped them clean. Their lives are going okay but the system starts failing for some with powerful glitches and the Hacking Collective get involved determined to steal the data.

What I Liked: The rotating POV’s of the minders is a really good way of telling the story, it was hard to remember everyone’s background at first, but it didn’t take too long. The program glitches are the real enemy of this story. I appreciated being rewarded by reading The Passengers with all the extra insight I had going into this story. The twist are good and are layered through out. I was given enough hints to figure out the main twist a little early, but the twist was layered with a lot of little stuff that I didn’t know, and it didn’t hurt my enjoyment. I liked the scene where a character almost revealed the huge top secrets that they now have access during a game of trivia. The Hacking Collective is a good bad guy that could literally be anyone, which adds to the paranoia.

What I Disliked: I had a little problem with the main plot, the minders are supposed to have the chip in for 5 years and have all the data, they make reference to it but then a new team of minders is brought in before the original group is done, I thought they needed to get the data back, so i was a little confused by that. Flick was my least favorite of the minders and she was sort of the lead in terms of reading time Sinead was my favorite, and had the most interesting background.

Recommendations: I recommend you check out The Minders by John Marrs, it is a good clever science fiction story that is totally original. The novel is very hard to put down, and a good escape. I rated The Minders by John Marrs 4 out of 5 stars. Out of the three John Marrs book that I have read this was my least favorite, which is hardly a knock, he’s one of those authors that I can always count on to be entertained. I look forward to my next John Marrs book, already.