FUSE

In the third entry in Hayman’s SF thriller series, after time-traveling psychologist Jackson Traine is captured by scheming psychiatrist Uwe Bent, Traine’s loved ones work to set him free.

The story picks up from where Scatter (2022), the previous installment in the series, left off. Brilliant villain Bent has released all his captives, save for Traine, who’s determined to do whatever he must to find his brother, Kenny, whose presumed death years ago has traumatized him. On the time-travel front, the narrative adds something new: Traine, who has the ability to go 10 minutes back in time, finds that he’s now able to do so on command; before, he needed to be traumatized to access his power. While he and Bent are locked in an escalating battle of wills (“The road to your brother is long,” Bent tells him), Lena Cortland, Traine’s romantic interest, and his office administrator, Megan McKenna, plot to find out where he’s being held and free him. This story unfolds briskly from multiple perspectives; in addition to Traine’s first-person narrative, alternating chapters, written by Traine in the third person, effectively chronicle the stratagems and psyches of the supporting characters. They include physicist Lena; Traine’s sister, National Security Agency operative Kansas; his “treacherous best friend,” Jude Spiegelman, who betrayed him to Bent; and Bent himself, who’s using them all as pawns in his grand schemes involving SCATTER, a former CIA operation to locate and capture time travelers. As this summary indicates, readers would do well to start with the first two installments of the series, which began with Jumpback (2021); it’s a complex tale already, and this entry’s storytelling structure adds a new wrinkle. Hayman does helpfully provide a cursory summary of the story so far, however, and the characters are exceptionally well developed, whether they’re good, bad, or conflicted; as such, even newcomers to the saga will be inexorably drawn in. Also, Bent’s evil nature makes him, as Traine puts it, “a clear villain to fight”—and to root against.

An increasingly exciting series proves itself to be well worth readers’ time.