Man in the Empty Suit
Ferrell, whose first novel, Numb (2010), followed a man with amnesia, ups the offbeat ante with this unique time-travel story. For the past 19 years, the unnamed narrator has been traveling back to New York City in 2071, where he gathers in a deserted hotel with various other iterations of himself, from the past and the future, and celebrates his birthday. But this year a body turns up dead, shot in the head, and it looks like the narrator is going to die, too. The book is part murder mystery and part mind-bending time-travel story. Consider this wrinkle: if the narrator is going to die in the very near future, then how can the very-much-older versions of himself still exist? And what about all those very-much-younger versions who are suddenly at the party? And who the heck is the woman named Lily, and how did she get there? Full of imagination and head-scratching conundrums, the novel may be too unusual to attract a mass audience, but it should definitely appeal to those who enjoy offbeat sf and mystery fiction. --David Pitt