Observer

Entanglements—romantic, criminal, and quantum—shape this fanciful brainteaser from Lanza (The Grand Biocentric Design) and Kress (The Eleventh Gate). Nobel laureate Sam Watkins runs an outré research clinic in the Cayman Islands where reality-altering microchips are implanted into patients’ brains so they can create new realities and (maybe) attain immortality. When the chief neurosurgeon dies in a diving accident, Watkins recruits his grandniece, doctor Caro Soames-Watkins, as a replacement. Caro, who’s facing a misogynistic social media fire storm after accusing a prominent coworker of sexual harassment, seizes on the opportunity to escape. Rebuffing advances from Watkin’s womanizing right-hand man, Caro befriends the project’s mastermind, Weigert, a soft-spoken widower who educates her in quantum physics, particularly the idea that “probabilities turn into matter or energy only when they are observed.” It’s not long before Caro figures out Weigert wants the microchip so he can travel to the multiverse and reunite with his late wife and dogs; meanwhile her uncle, who is dying of pancreatic cancer, hopes the operation will make him immortal. When a staffer turns up murdered and the institute’s research reaches the dark web, Caro must use all her wits to untangle the mystery. The fascinating science and fun interpersonal puzzle will appeal to fans of Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World and Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s The Daughter of Dr. Moreau. (Sept.)