The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn is a biochemical version of Flowers for Algernon. While The Dark Fields is labeled a techno-thriller and the book doesn’t touch on disabled rights, the basic plot points are very similar. But don’t expect a weepy emotional book, this is definitely a thriller.

Eddie Spinola is a copywriter for a New York publisher. He’s had some issues in his past that have cost him some jobs and some loves. While out walking around, he runs into an old friend Vernon Gant. Well, old friend is not the correct term. Ex-brother-in-law and ex-drug dealer is a more accurate version of the relationship. Eddie and Vernon go out for a bite to catch up and Vernon gives Eddie a new pill. It’s a great new lifestyle pill, approved by the FDA and will change your life. Eddie decides to try it and then spends the next 10 hours, cleaning, redecorating his apartment, researching and writing most of the book he has been stuck on for months.

It turns out that this pill isn’t exactly approved by the FDA. What it does is open your brain to concentrate and learn and see patterns more efficiently then humanly possible. When Eddie goes back to talk to Vernon about it, bad things happen. Vernon ends up dead and Eddie ends up with a few hundred pills and a pile of money. Eddie starts using the drug to overcome his writer’s block and then to successfully day trade stocks. As Eddie starts using his magic drug more and more, he starts getting blackouts and starts finding out that the new drug is potentially a lot more dangerous than he originally thought.

Glynn has an interesting concept and does a decent job working with it. All the scenes with Vernon are problematic and Eddie does stuff with Vernon that seems out of character for him. The day trading craze hearkens back to the heady days of the late 1990s and seems kind of quaint nowadays. Overall it’s a decent treatment of an interesting concept. Mildy recommended.