The first thing I thought of when I read the first chapter was Max Payne. It’s a very old game shaped like a crime noir graphic novel. In it, the detective (who doesn’t have the personality of a family man) comes home to find his wife and child killed by a druggie home invasion (which later turns out to be a conspiracy, but that’s not relevant here).

The same thing happens here–this is a detective novel where the main character discovers the bodies of his wife and child brutally killed in their home. The exception he doesn’t know who did it. Also, instead of John Woo powers, he remembers everything he hears/sees/senses. (The two aren’t connected–he got this ability from a football injury.) But one makes more sense for a written medium. None of this is good or bad, it’s just something I thought of.

The difference is that Max Payne is a send-up. A pastiche. Nearly self-referential. This one is all played straight. And it should be. And it works. And I loved it.

This is the kind of grit I was going for in Black Hole Son and Quake. A grimy emotionless man with an edge harder than steel. One who takes no shit, can’t stand people, but has an ability that makes him indispensable for saving the world. You can be a complete asshole and still help others. Use that hate for good.

I rated it five, but I’d really rate it 4.5 if GoodReads allowed centrist fence-sitters. The answer to the “whydunit” is sort of confusing. I guess it would have to be for someone who can access his life’s record like a DVR. The ending felt thinly tied to the character. You may say you read books for the journey, not the destination. But “whydunit”s are special in that the ending is particularly important.