Hauser's Memory by Curt Siodmak

Dr. Peter Cory is the preeminent RNA biochemist who previously achieved memory transfer in a human brain through telepathy in the classic Donovan's Brain (1941).

Washington demands his help when a German physicist defecting from Russia is shot en route to America. Desperate for Hauser's electromagnetism research, the CIA keeps his failing body alive in a coma and asks Dr. Cory to harness his brain waves at the moment of death. Dr. Cory won his Nobel Prize for successfully transferring RNA molecular storage of memories from one animal to another and understands he is the best candidate to be injected with the isolated RNA. To protect his friend from this controlled experiment, Cory's assistant Hillel injects the full amount extracted into his body.

It is a success. Now the mind of a German lives inside an Orthodox Jew. Despite the CIA watching closely, Hillel loses control of his will and escapes to Prague—speaking and writing in German—tracking down and exacting revenge on past enemies who betrayed Hauser and the Fatherland.

The CIA and Dr. Cory follow him from West Berlin, into East Berlin without papers, and across the border into Czechoslovakia with forged passports. Cross and double-cross, Cory and Hillel are pawns in a deadly game they have no wish to play.

After just 50 pages this turns from a scientific to a political thriller. Both Cory and Hillel are dangerous men the government cannot control, but the memory transfer science is sound, and perhaps a key to immortality. I really enjoy Curt Siodmak's novels, and this tense thriller works on many levels.

This was filmed for TV in 1970 starring David McCallum.

1968 / Hardcover / 192 pages

My other review for Curt Siodmak:

Donovan's Brain