DESTROYING MAX

A sinister CIA mind-control project sends an aspiring financier on a downward spiral in Sanderson’s 1960s-set thriller.

Max Marchand is a man used to starring in his own movie, as his Ford Galaxie hardtop, and penchant for navy blue silk suits suggests. While still a long way from wealthy, Max feels confident that his chosen career—financing risky development projects—will punch his ticket quickly enough. “I also know how to grease the wheel,” he tells his dutiful wife, Erin—in other words, he offers bribes or whatever it takes to move a project along. Like any big city, Montreal has its official and unofficial rules. While Max is a master of both, he can’t shake his feelings about “the emptiness and futility of everything,” and depressive urges lead to thoughts of jumping to his death. Erin becomes gripped by gnawing doubts of her own: For Max, dealing with hardened gangsters may feel like just another day at the office, “but she suspected it was more like monkey business.” It’s an impression buttressed by Max’s increasingly manic spiral of cheating, drinking, and foolish stock market bets, which prompts Erin to demand a divorce. Enter Dr. Smiley, a smooth-talking yet sinister psychiatrist who instigates a regimen of electroconvulsive therapy, taped messages, and deep sleep—along with, unbeknownst to either, regular injections of LSD, just to see what will happen. This is because Max is being enlisted as an unwitting guinea pig for CIA mind-control experiments. The plot reads like weird 1930s pulp fiction, but, as the author explains in his preface, the story draws on the CIA’s notorious MKUltra project, which forms the novel’s all too real backdrop. Sanderson’s yarn stands as a righteous howl of outrage against the nefariousness of 1960s realpolitik and the collateral damage left in its wake; of the countless Maxes treated like so many chess pieces, callously cast aside once their usefulness had ended. The novel sounds a warning that feels all too urgent in light of current events.

An eloquent, unblinking cautionary tale of hidden puppeteers playing power games.