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Hidden Variables: A Quantum Comedy

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A phantasmagorical detective story about a town so ignored by the world it disappears. Renowned author James Patterson says of Hidden A Quantum "If the idea of a paranormal mystery tickles your funny bone then this is definitely your book. In spades. Hidden Variables is like nothing you've ever read (in a good way). It's very, very funny." Kirkus Reviews "Funny, inventive, and engagingly mysterious. It’s a heady, absurd parable about the dying towns, media conglomerates, and dead-end freelance work that make up so much of the American landscape. A cerebral and amusing novel that revolves around a quantum mystery."

Denison in upstate New York was never much of a place to begin with, especially since the button factory left, but now it's fallen right off the space-time continuum, doesn’t even come up on Google. But as failed TV reporter and self-declared private investigator Padraig O’Toole discovers, there’s an upside. You can’t die in a place that doesn’t exist. That’s just quantum physics, nothing unobserved really exists, including the usually all too reliable cycle of life and death. As O’Toole discovers when he finds his way to the town, it's a cosmic quantum mystery even the local cops discuss like the rest of us talk about the weather.

Not exactly an ideal place to solve a homicide, eternal life presumably ruling out that crime. But O’Toole’s (maybe) murdered brother-in-law was last seen in the town, and he’s determined to track down the killer, even if, well, there can’t be one. He plunges into a fantastical world of elastic time, where seasons change in an afternoon, shoot-outs don’t get anyone killed, and the cast of characters includes a media mogul hiding out to deny her sons their inheritance, her sidekick, a fugitive priest, a state bureaucrat obsessed with building a family-friendly mall in a place you can't find on a map, an angel with a weakness for Chardonnay, and God Herself, who turns out to be a petulant middle aged woman annoyed with the mess everyone’s made in this obscure corner of Her creation. All raising a fundamental question about worth the trouble?

And what about love? Padraig O’Toole discovers that may have been there all along, like Denison, if only he’d really looked.

HIDDEN A QUANTUM COMEDY is a comic fantasy, a metaphysical detective story about a seeker from the wrong end of the gig economy who takes a journey to the ground of being and, in the end, finds eternal life – right back where he started.

326 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 10, 2022

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Bill Delaney

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Profile Image for Tess Manning.
1 review1 follower
January 12, 2023
A must read.

If I could describe this book in one word, it would be “special.” While I’ve never laughed out loud so many times while reading a novel, there is also a depth to this book that forces you to look at life, consider the hard questions, and lean into the unknown.

And as with every great book - the story was so enchanting, I couldn’t put it down. It takes you on a rollercoaster ride of emotions with a cast of characters who are so beautifully developed, you’ll miss them when it’s over. Each one of them - no matter how quirky - is so unbelievably relatable, you’d think the novel was written just for you.

Bill Delaney’s quick-witted humor, incredible (and impressive) understanding of the mysterious world of physics, and fast paced dialogue give Hidden Variables an edge that is entirely unique and as I said earlier - special.

There’s humor, physics, life & death, and even love - what more could you ask for?
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