Motive Games

L. D. Taylor, Wombat Books

Motive Games is an exciting whodunit set in a computer games company.

For readers, who are not up to speed with the lingo, the author has kindly put a glossary at the back. Actually, I wish she had put it at the front because I didn’t find it until I was half way through the book and had been working out the words by thinking about what they could mean by the context of the sentence.

No doubt that was very good for me.

The main character, Phil Roland, returns to his father’s workplace Motive Games, believing that his father was murdered there, to try to solve the mystery and track down the killer. He is assisted by a retired policeman, work colleagues and a geeky friend.

Parents toying over whether to buy this book as a present for offspring, who seem to have given up reading books for playing online games, need not fear that Motive Games will lead their little addict further down the path of dropping out of school and reality.

It addresses these points rather cleverly, including comments by characters discussing the importance of staying at school if you want to design computer games:

So, “3-D graphics, animation, dynamics; they’re math and science based as well as art-based” and “I probably could have done this simulation faster if I’d gone to more physics classes this semester.”

The effect of playing violent games is also debated by Phil and the former policeman, with a number of interesting points being raised. Many of the suspects, who might have killed Phil’s Dad, believed that a game that he designed led to a shooting rampage.
Motive Games is a great book — I had enormous trouble putting it down.

Katy Gerner