State of Mind (ISBN 0345422538)

Amazon.com Review:
Susan Clayton, a professional puzzle maker, is stumped by this anonymous note left at her door: "THE FIRST PERSON POSSESSES THAT WHICH THE SECOND PERSON HID." Distracted by the sweltering Florida Keys evening and her cancer-stricken mother in the next room, Susan spends hours before she solves the riddle--it means "I have found you." Ominous words, considering that a serial killer is stalking Florida. And in this novel, Florida is ominous to begin with: it's set in a Robocop-like future society where people carry semiautomatics like breath mints, road rage reigns, and folks gladly trade their right to privacy for a place in a protected community called the Fifty-first State (Katzenbach's scary takeoff on Disney's planned town of Celebration, Florida). Meanwhile, Susan's brother Jeffrey, an authority on serial killers, is finishing up a lecture when his silent security alarm flashes. His metal-detecting alarm was set off by special agent Robert Martin of "State Security" (an American-style SS), who confronts the good professor with some bad news about his late father, a psychopath. Could he be the one who left Susan that threatening note? Can anybody stop the Fifty-first State from getting even scarier? With mounting suspense, Jeffrey, Susan, and their ailing mother put their heads together to keep the futuristic body count from getting wholly out of control. There is perhaps a touch less gore than Katzenbach fans may be used to, but no fewer thrills. He has seen the future, and it will make your hair stand on end. --Rebekah Warren

Hard to follow:
I bought this book after having read a couple of Katzenbach's books that I really enjoyed. However, I found myself struggling to get through this book and skipping over large sections that just couldn't hold my interest. Bottom line, I wanted to like this book, but just couldn't.

Better than current thriller market:
I read the State of Mind on the strength of Just Cause and In the Heat of The Summer. This may be not as good as them but it is still much better than books that pass around as thrillers. Characters are good, writing is NOT juvenile (hear James Patterson?)and chapters are at REASONABLE length unlike one or two pages money-steal items. Premise is intelligent and hints are not around the first chapter. All in all, I cannot understand how this author fails to sell when juvenile and unmemorable craps produced by the likes of James Patterson or Nicholas Sparks jump to the top of bestseller lists. Less than the average level of public intelligence must be the culprit.

good idea well developed:
My first Katzenbach book and based upon what other reviewers wrote, I see I should get hold of some of his others. I found the ideas presented here intriguing - what can become of the States giving the increasing violence, one possible solution and the thinking behind it, the mind of the serial killer, fears in the killer's offspring regarding their own character traits, the games people play with each other and themselves. I liked how the author wove in aspects of serial-killer-history and sent me to google these and find out more. This is one of the few detective/thriller novels where I didn't skip over the descriptive paragraphs just to get to the "action", because I found that the action was partly in the scenery and the characterizations. Totally enjoyable read.

The Body count doesn't make sense:
Here's what I wrote the author, this will explain why the body count does not make sense. I am writing about the current book that I am reading, State of Mind. Now something does not quite make sense with the dialogue, or alternatively I have missed something, although I don't think so because I have gone back over the pages I have read a number of times. I will start with the dialogue that doesn't make sense on page 162 of the Warner Paperback it reads: "...., how much time between disappearance and discovery ?" "A month." "And the other two cases ?" "A week." "And twenty-five years ago ?" "Three days." Ok, that implies four cases: one took a month to discover the body, two cases a week, and twenty-five years ago, three days. Now let's work backwards, the crime that they suspected Jeffrey Clayton's father of committing twenty-five years ago took three days to discover the body. The other two cases: one was Jeffrey Claytons student who disappeared and the other the other one inside the Western Territory walking home from baby sitting. Ok. What other case of the two other cases ? Also on Page 60 it reads, "That's the current case....Body discovered two weeks later." I don't understand how many cases are there. By my reckoning there are three: 1. J.P. Mitchell. Body discovered 3 days later. 2. Jeffrey Clayton's student. Body discovered a week later. 3. Girl walking home from baby sitting. Body discovered a month later Now there's an open case of the girl who stayed back in school to help with the decorations but her body hasn't been found yet. So we have an extra body here that Agent Martin did not divulge to Jeffrey Clayton and Jeffrey Clayton is talking to Agent Martin about ? Huh ? Then there's the case of where the body in the current case, that's the girl walking home from baby sitting, where the body was discovered two weeks later and that's not even mentioned in the dialogue. I think you need to go back and revise the book and sort out the cases, the bodies discovered and the it took to discover them because it just doesn't make sense.

Disappointing:
Katzenbach is a good writer. His "The Analyst" is one of the best thrillers I've read. And Hart's war and The Madmans Tale are well written gripping stories. However with State of Mind I found my own mind wandering as I read it. Somehow it is too long and not particularly compelling. The future America he devises where everyone is armed and guards escort office workers to their cars is not perhaps far fetched but felt superficial. It merely existed as a counterpoint for a new 51st State where everyone was safe. Don't bother with this book, especially when Katzenbach has written so much better.