Briskly through The Blinds

Adam Sternbergh tells truly original tale

The Blinds Adam Sternbergh Ecco/HarperCollins The prison system — and how to treat incarcerated criminals — has always been problematic, no matter the plan. Adam Sternbergh’s imaginative The Blinds doesn’t solve the problem but offers an unusual alternative: round up the most violent murderers, house them in a remote town and, as a kicker, wipe their memories clean.

The Blinds expertly melds the thriller with the Western, adding a soupçon of medical-science fiction while paying a bit of homage to Jim Thompson’s The Getaway (the novel, not the movie) and Pop. 1280.

Located in the most remote area of Texas, the small town of Caesura — “rhymes with tempura” — is home to 48 people who have entered an unusual witness-protection program. Here, for the past eight years, vicious criminals have every memory of their past erased. Then they are given new identifies.

Adding to the mix are a few “innocents,” such as Fran Adams and her eight-year-old son Isaac, the only child in town. Innocents are there after witnessing horrific events they need to forget, being a crime victim or are in hiding after testifying. In The Blinds, as the residents call their town, they live in their own bungalows and are free to roam. But they can never leave; it did not end well for those few who did.

Sheriff Calvin Cooper presides over Caesura. Because no one remembers their identities, The Blinds is free of crime. But the shooting of two residents — one a suicide, the other a murder — puts Calvin and the town on alert, especially since guns are banned.

Sternbergh cleverly keeps the reader off-kilter with his characters and myriad plot twists. While the medical technology to wipe memories is given its due, Sternbergh wisely doesn’t linger on this subject.

The Blinds moves briskly as Sternbergh (Shovel Ready) delivers a truly original story.