In the year 2301, the latent mind-reading abilities of humans have been developed to the point where there a hundred thousand Level 1 "Espers" (can read conscious thoughts), several thousand Level 2s (can read unconscious thoughts) and several hundred Class 1 Espers (can penetrate to the pre-conscious under the right conditions). In a society where people have such abilities, nobody has successfully committed a triple-A crime in more than 70 years. But with the help of a disgruntled and heavily bribed Class 1 Esper, Ben Reich, owner of Monarch Utilities & Resources Inc., tries to commit the perfect murder of his competitor. It is up to Class 1 detective Lincoln Powell to track him down and bring Reich to justice. A classic of the golden age of sci fi, _The Demolished Man_ won the first best novel Hugo, in 1953, and apart from the occasional outdated reference (e.g., someone takes a rocket out of "Idlewild" -- now JFK in New York), it holds up remarkably well after nearly a half century.
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The review of this Book prepared by David Loftus
