It primarily revolves around Charles Pearson, the CEO of Reaching Dreams, a company based in San Diego, but now nationwide due to its incredible success, and designed to help those who are homeless get back on their feet. While RD started off small, now it exists in most major cities and gets people off the street, rehabilitated, and able to work and live in their own place, ideally pulling them off the street permanently. However, he notices that one city outshines them all by a mile - Chicago. He determines that he needs to know what makes them such a success and he must see for himself, deciding to pose as a homeless man in an attempt to get recruited by RD and see just what they are doing. His assistant, Paula Hamilton, won't allow it unless safety measures are in place, but despite these measures, a couple of days into living on the street and Charles wakes up in a strange place, strapped to a metal table and in pain. How did he get there and why is he there? He will spend every waking moment trying to figure this out and escape.
Meanwhile, almost as soon as he goes missing, Hamilton is on red alert. She not only goes to work on the man responsible for Pearson's safety in Chicago, but also on the Chicago police, determined to get her beloved boss back. However, the deeper she digs, the worse things get. Anomalies pop up in audits in five different cities, Chicago included, and the IRS also gets involved, along with other investigative agencies. Something weird is definitely going on, but soon the focus is following the audit trail instead of looking for Pearson, and only Hamilton fears for his safety. Everyone else just assumes he was doing financially shady things instead of being the caring, loving head of the company she knows him to be, and they presume he's made a run for it.
As Charles desperately looks for a means of escape, he finds himself with a new roommate, a man named Damien who thinks they've lucked out. After all, Damien is used to struggling for his next meal and a place to sleep, but Charles is trying to convince him that they are merely rats in cages. Additionally, Dr. Raymond, the sadistic man running the trials that the participants are forced to endure, doesn't seem to care a bit about the pain he is causing, only the results. Pearson's worst fear is that somehow, Reaching Dreams is responsible for this waking nightmare, and his only hope may be getting through to the monster in the white coat. After all, his life depends on it, as well as everyone else trapped in the facility.
Soul Suites is a different sort of a thriller. As you begin to read it, you may find yourself tempted to Google Charles Pearson and Reaching Dreams, but they are indeed fictional, although the author, Hulden Morse, is a real person living in Los Angeles, and hopefully just a clever writer and not actually someone who participated in the awful experiments discussed in this book, as he portrays himself. It's a well written thriller with interesting characters, and although I wasn't crazy about how the book ended, I enjoyed my time with it. Hulden Morse is a promising new author and it will be interesting to see what he does next.
