Book Review — Stolen Thoughts by Tim Tigner

(See all my Book Reviews and Author Interviews) — Tim Tigner (https://timtigner.com/) is the author of more than a dozen books. Stolen Thoughtswas published in May of 2021. It is the 81st title I’ve completed reading in 2025.

I received an ARC of this book for free and I am voluntarily leaving this review. My opinions are unbiased and entirely my own. Due to scenes of violence, I categorize this novel as R.

At the center of Stolen Thoughts is Victoria “Vicky” Pixler, a brilliant Caltech bioengineering graduate student whose life was shaped by tragedy. Both her parents were faculty members at Caltech when a lab explosion killed her father, gravely injured her mother, and left Vicky permanently deaf. That single event ignited her obsession: finding a way to read minds, allowing her to communicate effortlessly in a hearing world.

After a decade of relentless research, Vicky succeeds. She builds a system–hardware and software–that can decode human thoughts. But her triumph comes with a chilling realization: releasing such technology to the public would unleash chaos.

To protect her invention–and support herself and her injured mother–Vicky reinvents herself as Cassandra, a Las Vegas psychic who can seemingly read anyone’s mind. Her act becomes a success. With the help of her manager, Quinten “Chewie” Bacca, her career skyrockets, and their friendship begins to evolve into something deeper.

Then everything collapses.

A man calling himself Walter White–real name Vance Panzer–arrives for a private reading. When Vicky scans his thoughts, she discovers he has been hired to assassinate her. She narrowly escapes, but the message is unmistakable: someone wants “Cassandra” dead.

Vicky and Chewie flee Las Vegas, buying a yacht and vanishing into the Caribbean. As they regroup, Vicky becomes convinced that someone else must have developed similar mind-reading tech–and sees her as a threat. Her investigation leads to a powerful New York law firm: RRS&S. A firm with a perfect win record–and senior partners who all wear thick-framed glasses similar to the ones containing Vicky’s own mind-reading hardware.

Meanwhile, also hiding in the Caribbean, former CIA operative Zachary Chase and girlfriend Skylar Fawkes are living under the radar after escaping with millions taken from a deceased drug lord. When they witness a deadly hit-and-run on St. Croix, they bravely report the crime despite the risk to their identities. Their courage backfires when the accused woman’s attorney–Scarlett Slate, a partner at RRS&S–immediately uncovers who they really are and silences them.

A chance encounter brings Zach, Skylar, Vicky, and Chewie together. Realizing they share a powerful enemy and face the same high-tech threat, the four join forces to expose RRS&S and destroy their mind-reading system.

But RRS&S won’t go down quietly. They hire Fredo Blanco, a relentless and highly skilled assassin, to track and eliminate Vicky. He quickly picks up her trail.

At the same time, eccentric tech billionaire Archibald Pascal discovers the secret behind RRS&S’s courtroom success. He hires the firm to defend him in an explosive sexual-assault trial–while offering to buy their mind-reading technology for an astronomical sum. An offer that will make them incredibly wealthy without any further work.

All paths converge in New York City. Archibald’s trial begins. RRS&S prepares to secure the deal that will make them unimaginably wealthy. Vicky and her allies arrive to stop them. And Fredo Blanco closes in, determined to finish the job.

In a final confrontation where every thought is a weapon, only one side will survive.

I enjoyed the 7+ hours I spent reading this 346-page thriller. I had the opportunity to read one of his earlier novels, Coercion, and I have enjoyed and recommend both of them. I give this novel a rating of 4.4 (rounded to 4) out of 5.

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