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Review [published November 1999]
Michael Marshall Smith: One Of Us
Antony Johnston
One of Us. A powerful phrase – belonging, kinship,
camaraderie. Familiar concepts, though this book deals
with them in ways you may not expect.
Initially our protagonist, Hap Thompson, seems anything
but ‘One of Us’. An outsider, a loner with no life,
an ex-wife, forced to live in exile from his hometown.
The reader begins to think that perhaps Smith means
‘Us’ in the more intimate, author-reader sense. Everyone
can identify with the character who feels his life
has been wasted, his best years are behind him and he
will never again live as fully as he once did.
Hap is a REMTemp, an occupation whose legalities
are still being wrangled out in court. He receives other
people’s dreams, so that they may sleep untroubled.
The process leaves him tired but wealthy, though the
grey legal aspect means he must move from town to
town, trusting no-one. Nevertheless, Hap has little
reason to complain. He knows he screwed his own
life up, and this is the best-paying job he’s ever had.
Mustn’t grumble.
Until, that is, his boss ‘persuades’ him to move into
another, even more dubious area – memory receival.
And one particular memory contains a murder, committed
by a woman who has now disappeared. The
murder of a police lieutenant.
The book starts, like all good thrillers, in the middle.
It is only through lengthy but natural exposition that
we realise what has befallen Hap, about a quarter of
the way through the book. Though by that time, after
having discovered he is also being pursued by what
can best be described as Men In Black for reasons
unknown, we are so snowed under with questions,
concepts and plot twists that we have far more on our
plate to worry about.
Spares, Smith’s previous novel, was a similar ‘one
man’s quest to find the truth’ affair, but to compare
further would be unfair. What we have here is an altogether
more mature work, with less desire to shock
and more emphasis on keeping the reader turning the
pages, which Smith does admirably. His previously
shown talent for a good plot and deft character is
shown to full potential here in a story that contains
more twists than any given John Grisham novel has
in its little finger. Metaphorically speaking.
BUY Michael Marshall Smith books online from and
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