The novel chucks you instantly into the world of a hacker as Jim’s business files are hacked, and the only way to restore anything is to pay the ransom; giving a glimpse to where this novel would take the reader.
While Jack, the main character is dealing with the love of his life going to Haiti, worrying about her and where his life is taking him. The novel allows small glimpses into the world of Haiti after the terrible disaster that hit them.
It’s a little bit slow to start, just talking about this woman Catherine that he is in love with, her driven need to do charity work and his lack of direction.
I kind of wondered where this was heading. The first couple of chapters went off course and seemed to have no relevance.
This book may be interesting to a computer geek, but quite a bit of it felt like I was reading a text book. I kept on fading in and out hoping to get somewhere that showed a glimmer of excitement.
Everything I wanted to know (or didn’t want to know) filled the pages. I had an inkling where this was going, but wished it would get there much faster. Because it was very technical it was hard to connect to Jack. It felt the characters were secondary to the plot.
Thirty-four pages in and I was still reading about computer viruses, only short breaks filled in by Jack’s mundane life.
There’s not much dialogue that occurs. The fine line begins to be drawn in which Jack has to decide how far he will go. Meanwhile, John an FBI agent begins to learn more about the virus underworld.
The story took me on the journey of the FBI agent, but again instead of actual events happening, there is more info about the hacking scandal. On page 53 and I did expect something to have taken place. Although very informative and somewhat frightening in terms of how hackers can get information, I wanted some connection to what was happening.
I felt the story needed more. I tried to get involved, and maybe for those that are interested in all this technical stuff might find this intriguing, but I felt the author should have done more with this plot. It does have the backbone of a good thriller, but needs work to make it exciting. Without this connection the novel doesn’t really give me anything.
The wording is quite repetitive and a bit cliché. Certain elements really worked, while others didn’t, so I felt it wasn’t complete.
The ending didn’t really help with the overall conclusion, just showed how easy it can be to do this hacking, and how it affects others.
2/5 stars
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