A homeless street magician is recruited by a secret society that trains its recruits in the art of persuasion to the extent that they can manipulate the minds of their unwitting victims once they have identified the person's core personality type. In an alternate story line, Wil, a man whose memory has been altered, is attacked and kidnapped, according to his captors, for his own good. Someone is using the persuasive arts for their own gain and it is up to Wil to figure out the madman and the motives behind the massacre of every inhabitant in a small town in Australia.
What I hoped would be a smart book about language ended up being your average brainwashing story, so I have to admit I was disappointed. For me, the weakness of an author's imagination is unveiled when there is unnecessarily crudeness so that was another disappointment of this book. It was an intriguing story but I won't be running back to Barry's oeuvre.
