An entertaining mix of SF and corporate intrigue that pits futuristic gizmos and ancient wisdom against authoritarian...
Righteous hackers guided by Hindu philosophy battle a sinister mind-control device in Berman’s speculative thriller.
The author depicts a future in which the United States is under the tyrannical rule of a nameless dictator, with democracy holding on in the breakaway nation of California. The plot centers on a “pod” of six employees of the Silicon Valley video game company HastinSys who live together on a Bay Area farm. They include emotionally fragile tech writer Darah Ahmadi; hotheaded coder Beers; levelheaded supercoder Jedd; and progressive ultracoder June. Their nemeses are a rival pod of marketing staffers named Kurt, Karin, and Keith who ruthlessly take over the coders’ penthouse office space and get them displaced to a smaller room. The coders discover that the ‘Ks’ are working with the dictator and his Russian backers to release the Happy App, which can subliminally program users’ brains. Repairing to their farm, the coders try to derail the plot by hacking the app. They are assisted by Ansirk, an unhoused, barefoot, flute-playing teen with an enigmatic smile whose name spelled backward approximates that of the Hindu god Krishna. He provides moral support and brainstorms a promising hacking strategy: They will alter the Happy App to impart the calming “soundless sound” of the primordial universe into users’ minds. The author sets her pastiche of the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata in a high-tech civilization—driverless flying cars and holograms abound—and a sleek corporate setting. The novel features nifty capers—Darah seduces a co-worker to plant a bug—along with engrossing procedural sequences, including Jedd’s creation of a virtual road trip to Canada to hide their whereabouts, complete with simulated pit stops and snack purchases. Along the way, Ansirk teaches ethics and advocates giving up control in limpid prose that’s replete with evocative metaphors (“You can go through life like a steering wheel, with your ego-mind running the show. Or you can go through life like [a self-driving vehicle], where your mind takes a back seat and you place your faith in the car’s power”). The result is an imaginative tale alive with captivating ideas.
An entertaining mix of SF and corporate intrigue that pits futuristic gizmos and ancient wisdom against authoritarian politics.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781684632305
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
“Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying.
Following the mysterious disappearance of his wife, a struggling London novelist journeys to a remote Scottish island to try to get his mojo back—but all, of course, is not what it seems.
Grady Green hits the pinnacle of his publishing career on the same night that his life goes off the rails—first his book lands on the New York Times bestseller list, and then his wife, Abby, goes missing on her way home. A year later, Grady is a mere shadow of his former self: out of money and out of ideas. So, when his agent, Abby’s godmother, suggests that he spend some time on the Isle of Amberly, in a log cabin left to her by one of her writers, it seems as good a plan as any. With free housing for himself and his dog and a beautiful, distraction-free environment, maybe he can finally complete the next novel. But from the very beginning, Grady’s experiences with Amberly seem weird, if not downright ominous: As a visitor, he’s not allowed to bring his car onto the island; the local businesses are only open for a few hours at a time; and there are no birds. At all. Not to mention the skeletal hand he finds buried under the floorboards of the cabin, the creepy harmonica music in the woods, and the occasional sighting of a woman in a red coat who’s a dead ringer for Abby. As Grady falls deeper and deeper into insomnia and alcoholism, he begins to realize his being on the island is no accident—and that should make him very afraid. Through occasional chapters from before Abby’s disappearance, told from her point of view, we learn that Grady is not necessarily a reliable narrator, and the book’s slow unfolding of dread, mystery, and then truth is both creative and well-paced. Every chapter heading is an oxymoron, like the title, reminding us of the contradictions at the heart of every story.
“Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781250337788
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
A potent and surprising novel by the ever-reliable Crais.
Hired to find the father of celebrity “muffin girl” Traci Beller 10 years after his disappearance, PI Elvis Cole uncovers a nefarious plot that puts his life and those he contacts at risk.
The sweetly likable Traci, now 23, has amassed a huge following with her website, The Baker Next Door, and on social media. Against the advice and self-interest of the people who over-manage her career, she decides to find out what happened to her father. Cole quickly determines that he was last seen at the SurfMutt hamburger stand, where he gave a ride to Anya Given, a troubled 15-year-old whose mother, Sadie, was late in picking her up from the skate park across the street. With the reluctant help of a scattered young woman who used to work at the burger joint, Cole tracks down Anya and Sadie, who is eventually revealed to have a criminal past. For his efforts, he’s jumped by a small gang of men who send him to the hospital with the worst beating of his life. (Asked by a nurse what his name is, the best he can guess is “Los Angeles.”) Still in recovery, Cole and Joe Pike, his ex-Marine partner, trace his attackers to Sadie, with unexpected results. As ever, Crais draws the reader in via his protagonist’s casual, dryly humorous manner and the book’s relaxed ties to classic noir. Slowly but surely, the plot gains intensity and deadly purpose. Just when you think the missing persons case is solved, Crais ratchets things up with a devastating follow-through. This is the L.A. novelist’s 20th Cole mystery, following such efforts as The Watchman (2007) and Racing the Light (2022). It may be his most powerful.
A potent and surprising novel by the ever-reliable Crais.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9780525535768
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
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