Inspired by reports of the CIA's clandestine mind control experiments in the 1960s, this powerful literary thriller follows the consequences of such illegal research and the way if affected both the scientists devising the programme but also its subjects. Henry March's mind and family were destroyed as a result of the MKUltra project and he has disappeared. Two decades later, Dick Ashby, a drug-addled CIA agent infiltrates a West Coast radical group who claim to have been affected by the brainwashing and are desperate to find Marsh. A weighty tale of treachery and paranoia with uncomfortable links to true events documented in the press, this is a tense tale that never lets go.
From its official sanction in 1953 to its shutdown in 1973, the CIA clandestinely conducted methods of mind control on unwitting American and Canadian citizens. This covert and illegal operation, Project MKUltra, eventually made national headlines upon the declassification of thousands of documents in 2001. Inspired by these events, Scott O'Connor's *Half World* is the story of Henry March, a fraying CIA analyst who conducts secret mind-control experiments in San Francisco. With each passing day, Henry's existence becomes a nightmare, his identity withering as he works over the hapless men lured into his facility. Struggling between his duty to his country and his responsibility to his wife and children, Henry finally reaches a breaking point, leaving both his project and mind fractured. Amid the wreckage, he becomes the deepest ULTRA mystery. Two decades later, Dickie Ashby, a young, drug-addled CIA agent, is sent to Los Angeles to infiltrate a group of bank-robbing radicals who claim to have been abused in a government brainwashing operation years earlier. The members of the group know they need to find Henry March and Dickie suddenly finds himself dragged into the stunning legacy of the experiments, tragedy that has destroyed the March family, and which threatens to engulf a war-torn country ready to combust.
'One of those books you can hardly stand to stuff the bookmark in at the end of the night. Terrific.'
Scott Phillips bestselling author of The Adjustment and The Ice Harvest
Author
About Scott O'Connor
Scott O'Connor was born in Syracuse, New York, the son of an air-traffic controller and a preschool teacher. He is a co-founder of GO Studios, a post-production and motion graphics design firm. His books include the novella Among Wolves and Untouchable, his first novel, which won the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award. He lives with his family in Los Angeles.
