Chance

A well written, thoughtful and dramatic tale with a plot which crackles with intensity. It also introduces a quite iconic character in the shape of D, an enigmatic and complex character. Terrific writing and an excellent read.

Very enjoyable, and the characters seem particularly believable. If you enjoyed the tv series you will enjoy this, and vice versa.

Interesting and reflective book on the mind, the nature of friendship and relationships and in general how life can spin out of control even for a mainstream, well established psychiatrist.

Fine

I watched the tv series along with reading the book and it pretty much sticks to the plot

This is ambitious and provocative, complex in construction and in its prose. Superficially it treads the same neurotic waters as Jonathan Kellerman’s Dr Alex Delaware investigations, where the reader is given psychological insights into the mechanisms of the unravelling mind.But author Kem Nunn takes many more risks than Kellerman does, and pulls away all the anchors from his good doctor’s sleek, urban existence. Think of the corruption of Will Graham in the TV series Hannibal and you’ll get a sense of the existential peril which assaults forensic neuropsychiatrist Dr Eldon Chance.The vulnerable Dr Chance falls for a femme fatale when he’s at a low ebb, emotionally and financially exhausted by divorce. He makes a questionable decision which sets the dominos of moral ambiguity tumbling… until suddenly he’s confronted with all too physically painful consequences of his increasingly criminal actions. The author has crafted a modern day descent into hell, where weakness, lust, greed, cowardice and obsession contribute to the professional, intellectual and spiritual unravelling of the central character.Psychology and psychiatry are at the core of the story. The opening chapters feature a succession of superb case study sketches, in which the doctor encapsulates his patients’ personality disorders in a few presumptuous statements. He is pride personified, heading for a very big fall. It comes his way in the shape of sexual obsession mixed with multiple personalities…Speaking of which, the chain of events surrounding the woman of his dreams / bunny-boiler, and her possessive corrupt cop husband, become increasingly unlikely as the plot progresses. Even my credibility was strained in the final chapters.On the other hand, D is a fabulous character. Is he really the implacable, streetwise, military veteran he appears to be? Or is he another fantasist, another individual carving out an identity of his own creation? Hang on, isn’t that what we’re all doing?Only a brave author risks incorporating Kierkegaard and Nietzsche into noir these days. Those readers who prefer their psychological thriller to be free of geometric paradoxes, and who hate half-page paragraphs made up of a single, convoluted sentence stuffed with dependent clauses, should probably stick to something more conventional.8/10There's a more detailed review (and many others) over at murdermayhemandmore.net

The page before the first page by Ken Nunn contains a definition of the word “chance,” which concludes with the sentence “Sometimes granted agency, as in Chance governs all.” “Chance” is also the name of the protagonist, one Eldon J. Chance, MD, Associate Clinical Professor, Dept. of Psychiatry at UCSF Medical School. He is a forensic neuropsychiatrist (a new term for this reader) whose primary source of income these days is as an expert witness at or in preparation for trials. “He rarely saw someone more than once or twice and rarely worked with them as patients.”Now, separated from his wife after 20 years of marriage and with “his personal and financial life in such total and utter disarray,” despite always before being “a believer in caution,” he has found himself becoming fixated on first one, then another, of those patients. The latter of these is also the more fraught with complications and potential danger, both psychic and physical, Jaclyn Blackstone, a 36-year-old woman living in Berkeley thought to suffer from apparent “dissociative identity personality disorder. About 50 pages in, the tale morphs into something much more sinister. The problem arises from the fact that Jaclyn’s husband is not only violent and possessive, but is also a cop. Chance finds himself “half in love with an impossible woman, a potentially malignant blip on another man’s radar.”Chance believes that “[l]ike Houdini, we construct the machinery of our entrapment from which we must finally escape or die.” And he certainly does that. He is aided by a totally unique character, a seemingly deranged loner who makes it his current life’s work to assist Chance in extricating himself from either his relationship with Jaclyn, or at least, one way or another, from its more dangerous aspects. His characters are very well-drawn, and the plot engrossing. (And his appreciation for Chet Baker and Charlie Parker is certainly a plus.) Though generally well written, I found some of the writing to be less “smooth” (for lack of a better term) than the rest, and therefore a bit uneven. That said, “Chance” is certainly interesting, and it is recommended.