"Old" is not the same as "easy", though Hector MacDonald makes it seem so with The Mind Game. The author is a 28-year-old Kenyan with a degree in biology, and no previous novels under his belt. All the same, his first will be published in fourteen countries by year's end, and it should entertain readers in each of them. Those, at least, who are game theorists and these days that's a fair chunk.

Game theory is very cool, which makes it very hot among certain academics. A lot of the .coms that managed not to go tits this year (even some that have) design computer games. So the study of how to keep adolescents glued to the tubes without showing boobs has resuscitated university psych departments that were otherwise straightlining their 21st century relevancy tests. If it isn't already, a "Prisoner's Dilemma 101" course will soon be offered near you, mark my words.

That's more or less how Ben Ashurst, an Oxford undergrad, gets drawn into The Mind Game. In the opening chapter he meets a fascinating new woman at a game of truth-or-dare with his posh university pals. Here MacDonald's writing is clever and resourceful, seducing the reader along with the protagonist. Soon the beautiful Cara persuades Ben to be the subject of his Oxford tutor's experiments to measure emotional response. The "lab" will be a tourist resort on the Kenyan coast. Three weeks expenses paid making love to an exotic beauty on the sand next to an aquamarine Indian Ocean. Well gee, can we all go?

As you might expect, the experiments, conducted by the brilliant animal behaviourist James Fieldhead, are more than they seem. Ben however proves less than he first seemed, and more like the ghost-story victim who simply must go check that strange noise in the basement. The reader recognizes and anticipates upcoming parlour tricks, but The Mind Game handles that well. As Ben's credulity begins to challenge our own, MacDonald suggests a number of potential turns for the plot. We read on to see which one is selected. The Mind Game's strategy is progressive, eventually feeling like a competition with the author for control of the reader's attention span. In my case the author won.

By the time Ben returns from Africa he can't sort his friends from his enemies. He's been humiliated by the Prisoner's Dilemma in an African goal and still faces challenges in merry England and shaggy San Francisco before he can get his life back. Despite a weakness toward explanation and psychobabble, MacDonald manages a quickening pace. And if the ending has a hole big enough to drive a truck through, pulling a float-load of gamey psychologists behind, well, it's still an entertaining read. Perhaps the more likely, more interesting possibilities MacDonald suggests for the forces torturing Ben are simply too predictable to surprise. The reader can speculate on that other stuff after closing the back cover.

The Prisoner's Dilemma is a game of strategy in which two players must determine, without the benefit of direct communication, whether they will achieve better results acting in self-interest or cooperation. It's popular with game geeks and pseudo-psycho bureaucrats who imagine themselves as third parties to the table, the ones that control the rules and conditions of the game. Designing games is mostly about fantasizing some power that compels others to play. Much as I enjoyed The Mind Game, I'm not sure I'd let Hector MacDonald deal me another hand.