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Nerve Damage is the kind of novel Peter Abrahams settled into in the later part of his career: a quietly menacing premise, a careful protagonist, and a slow unspooling of what is actually going on. Roy Valois is a Vermont sculptor with a terminal mesothelioma diagnosis. He reads his own obituary online and notices a detail about his late wife's career that does not match what he was told 15 years ago.
The investigation that follows is partly about marriage and partly about the way a diagnosis like Roy's can become a kind of license to ask questions you have been avoiding. Abrahams is excellent at the procedural detail (Roy's art studio, the Vermont geography, the slow process of pulling old phone records) and even better at the emotional texture of a man who has decided he might as well find out.
The thriller plot in the back half is competent rather than great. The character work carries it. Four stars.
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