1999 Past Reviews:
 Reviewed in January, 1999
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Growing Light, by Martha Conley
paperback, Berkley Prime Crime, 1993, $4.99, 228 pages
 Young widow Anne Monro takes a job as a technical writer at the "Growing Light" software company and is put at the top of the suspect list when the firm's president is murdered on her first day at work.
"Growing Light" evolved from a simple piece of farming software into a new age abomination that reads your aura and horoscope to make your garden grow. Although the murder is committed for comfortably old-fashioned motives, computers are a running joke throughout the plot. My favorite: the manuals are deliberately written to be incomprehensible so that customers are forced to pay for overpriced technical assistance. Sound familiar? With its cast of aging hippies, greedy yuppies, stoned notaries and beer-swilling aura cleansers, it confirms everything we ever suspected about California.
Reviewed in January, 1999
Scatterpath, by Maralys Wills
Hardback, Lyford Books, 1993, $19.95, 363 pages
Airtech's new fly-by-wire jets are malfunctioning. Although everyone is eager to blame the problem on pilot error, National Transportation Safety Board investigator Alan Wilcox suspects sabotage. He's right. A sociopathic young computer genius is deliberately introducing subtle glitches into circuit boards so that he can become famous as the engineer of the world's worst air crash.
A much more compelling book that Michael Creighton's bestseller Airframe. The scenes describing aircraft accident investigations are chillingly realistic, and the reluctance of pilots to give up physical control of their aircraft to computers is fascinating. If the combination of aircraft disasters plus computers strikes a responsive chord with you, read this book. Out of print, but you might be able to find it in a used bookstore (as I did) or copies are available in the Central, Cody, Brookhollow and Cortez libraries.
Reviewed in February, 1999
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Mortal Fear, by Greg Iles
paperback, Signet, $6.99, 1997, 621 pages
 A serial killer is using the EROS computer network to select his victims. Part-time systems operator Harper Cole catches on and in an attempt to clear his name and save lives he places his family in jeopardy.
I picked up this book once and threw it down after the first three pages, which I found too explicit. Once I broke through the barrier I was captivated, but be warned that much of the action takes place on a sex-talk BBS and does not leave much to the imagination. The technology - especially the way the killer uses the telephone system to hide his name and location - is fascinating and rings true. My favorite part was when the hero rigged his laser printer to work as a bomb. Mortal Fear has received excellent reviews and Iles subsequent novel, Spandau Phoenix, made it to the New York Times best seller list.
Reviewed in February, 1999
Terminal Games, by Cole Perriman
paperback, Bantam Books, 1994, $5.99, 546 pages
High-tech fantasy turns into a real-life nightmare when members of the exclusive online service Insomnimania are murdered. The L.A. cops write off Marianne Hedison as a crank when she calls with a tip that the murders might have been committed by Augie, a clown in her computer, but start taking her seriously when she downloads an animation from the "snuff room" that contains details that only the murderer could know.
A chilling depiction of what happens when the fuzzy borders between fantasy and reality become blurred. Lots of technical details for the geek audience. My favorite character was Prichard, a systems operator who maintains a virus menagerie and feeds his pets software to gobble up and keep them thriving. A highly original plot that will keep you guessing until the chilling ending. Be warned that there are explicit scenes in the "pleasure dome."
Reviewed in March, 1999
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Reaper, by Ben Mezrich
Harper Fiction, paperback, 1998, $6.99, 407 pages
 A Boston paramedic stumbles on a horrific scene - eight lawyers participating in a teleconference have died sudden and frightful deaths, their organs calcified. He and an army virologist suspect that these and a handful of other similar incidents are tied to the beta-testing of high bandwidth TV/computer combo that is soon to be switched on in ninety-five percent of American households. Light emissions from the screen appear to activate dormant viruses present in everyone's immune system, causing death. Only days away from the "big turn on," the heroes have to figure out what's wrong and who's responsible, then pull the plug before the entire country is put in jeopardy.
Soon to be a made-for-TV movie on TBS, this one kept me on the edge of my seat. It addresses some serious computer issues, such as data security and encryption, the danger of giving one company too much power over our information technology, and the potential for a computer virus go berserk. Nicely done medical details, too. The characters are likeable and the plot is action-packed. Lightweight, but highly recommended.
Reviewed in March, 1999
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Society of the Mind, by Eric L. Harry
Harper, paperback, 1996, $6.99, 657 pages
 Harvard psychologist Laura Aldridge receives a mysterious summons to the South Seas hideaway of the world's richest man, computer magnate Joseph Gray. Laura assumes that the invitation is for administering discreet therapy to Gray himself, but she is stunned to learn that her mission is to determine whether the computers themselves have gone insane.
This is a fantastic book, teetering on the edge of speculative fiction. The computer in the book are water-cooled, analog, and use fuzzy logic. The computers are self-programming, using the laws of evolution; they created free-ranging robots that learn about the world by experiencing it. It is an intriguing - and at times - frightening glimpse of the future, and raises important questions about what it means to be human.
Reviewed in April, 1999
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Hardwired, by Sally Chapman
Paperback, Worldwide Mystery, 1998, $4.99, 301 pages
 Computer security consultants Julie and Vic are hired by NASA to stop a hacker that is sending
random strings of numbers across the computer screens of a space shuttle. Human suspects
abound but the astronauts hint that the hacker might be an alien life force.
I waited for months for this book to come out in paperback and was sorely disappointed. Unlike the other novels in this series, the computer aspects of the plot were scanty, belying it's subtitle, "a
Silicon Valley Mystery." The repartee between Julie and Vic crackles, but the rest of the characters are flat and the plot is thin. Pass this one up.
Reviewed in May, 1999
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Breakthrough, by R. J. Pineiro
Paperback, Tor Books, 1997, $6.99, 381 pages
 Jake Fisher's organic bio-chip, using proteins to process information, is at the heart of a radical new computer, one hundred times faster than current PCs. Jake and his Russian émigré sidekick are within months of putting his new chip on every desktop. Everyone else is out for blood. The "vulture capitalists" want to sell him out to cash in on their investment. The CIA and FBI plot to stop him before the silicon chip industry goes belly-up and destroys the stock market. And the Germans hire a hit man to bump him off and steal his ideas so they can corner this lucrative niche and revive an economy drained by the absorption of the East. Jake goes on the lam to save his patents - and his life.
The intriguing possibility of organic memory is fascinating but the real gripper in this plot is the realistic portrayal of how venture capitalists manipulate high-tech industries. Pineiro, an engineer with AMD in Austin, wrote a real winner.
Reviewed in May, 1999
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The Center, by David Shobin
Paperback, St. Martin's, 1997, $4.99, 346 pages
 When Maxine Lassiter's sister needs to have her tonsils removed she checks her into The Center,
a revolutionary new hospital where computers, not doctors, treat the patients. The Center reports
back that little Christine died of an unsuspected heart defect, but the records are missing and her
body is never released. Maxine turns to one of the hospital's creators to help solve the mystery.
Something has gone terribly wrong with The Center, but is its being caused by the computers or
humans?
The Center raises serious questions about high-tech medicine. Can a robot replace a surgeon? Is
an algorithm a substitute for a diagnostician? Is a cure more important than compassion? Are we
too trusting of technology? The author is a doctor himself and his dark vision of the future of
high-tech medical care is terrifying.
Reviewed in June, 1999
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Net Force, by Tom Clancy (Creator), Steve R. Pieczenik (Creator)
Paperback, Berkley Fiction, 1999, $7.99, 342 pages
 The year is 2010, and computers are the new superpowers. When his boss is assassinated, Alex Michaels steps in to fill in as the Director of the FBI's Net Force, a special department established to police the Internet. He gets caught in the crossfire between a Mafia don , an Eastern European strongman plotting a coup and a chameleon-like female assassin. He wins.
Net Force was the basis for an ABC made-for-TV movie that aired in February. Maybe it should have been a Saturday morning cartoon -- it read like a comic book, with too-good-to-be-true heroes fighting totally evil enemies. A group of bright high schoolers steps in to help the FBI and eavesdropping on their made-up teenspeak is painful. From a computer standpoint, there is a shallow but possible portrayal of the Internet ten years hence as being a virtual reality ride down the information superhighway, and a neat little device, the virgil, - virtual global interface link - an all-in-one communications device. Created by Tom Clancy doesn't mean written by him - he should be ashamed at this bit of fluff.
Reviewed in June, 1999
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Ruthless.Com created by Tom Clancy and Martin Harry Greenberg
Paperback, Berkley Fiction, 1998, $7.99, 353 pages
 Businessman Roger Gordian believes it would compromise national security to put his encryption program on the market and finds his company the object of a corporate takeover by Asian political extremists, who want to put the leadership of the free world out of business. He wins, they die.
The .Com in the title of the book lead me to believe that it would have a strong computer theme. It doesn't. Although the company targeted for takeover produces encryption software, computers play a very minor role. One exception is the a step-by-step portrayal of a raid of a "key vault" in Sacramento. This appalling book was written as a companion to a computer game by the same name. For almost eight bucks a book you would think Clancy could have afforded a proofreader - the Philippines was spelled three different ways in the first hundred pages.
Reviewed in July, 1999
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Vampire Bytes, by Linda Grant
Paperback, Ballantine, 1998, $5.99, 304 pages
 Soon after absconding with the source code to a soon-to-be-released vampire role playing game, a programmer is murdered, his naked body drained of blood. A teenaged girl, last seen with him at a vampire live-action role playing game, disappears at the same time. Private investigator Catherine Sayler is drawn into both cases and battles public hysteria when Silicon Valley parents, cops and clergy begin to fear that their kids are being drawn into a satanic cult.
Grant has a knack for releasing a book just before the story breaks - her novel about sexual harassment was released just as the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill case hit the headlines, and this book about affluent teens on the fringe has echoes of Littleton. This thoughtful, respectful and well-written book explores the connection between computer games and teen violence and paints a vivid portrait of why adults will never, ever understand kids. Nice technical details on how games are designed and tested and a primer on how to send anonymous e-mail. Highly recommended!
Reviewed in July, 1999
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The Expert, by Lee Gruenfeld
Paperback, Onyx Books, 1999, $6.99, 496 pages
 The president of Tera-Tech, who has relentlessly pressured the government to loosen federal laws prohibiting the export of encryption technology, is indicted for selling chips with an embedded high-speed processor capable of handling 256-bit encryption keys to the Chinese. He claims that the technology does not yet exist to manufacture the alleged chips; the government claims it confiscated one. Is he lying or is someone setting him up? The truth is unfolded in an engrossing courtroom drama.
This excellent novel will appeal to both legal eagles and techno-obsessives. Gruenfeld is the former manager of systems development for a pioneering computer company (which he coyly refuses to name) and has served as an expert witness himself - the details are flawless. The technique of coaching an expert to explain extraordinarily complex scientific principles to a lay jury ensures that the science can be understood. The novel brilliantly covers encryption technology, chip manufacturing and the tension between national security and data privacy. This is one of the best books in the genre and not to be missed.
Reviewed in August, 1999
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Chameleon, by Shirley Kennett
Paperback, Pinnacle Books, 1998, 367 pages, $5.99
 Columbus Wade is a sociopathic 12-year-old who graduates from torturing the family pets to constructing virtual reality computer scenarios in which he bumps off his teachers. But that's just a rehearsal for the real thing. The mother of his best friend is PJ Gray, a police department psychologist who uses virtual reality modeling to solve crimes. Columbus gives her the creeps, her son's behavior takes a weird turn and she is torn between a mother's love and doing her job to unmask a ruthless killer.
This engrossing book is third in a series. Kennett is a former computer systems consultant who gets the technical details exactly right. Computers don't dominate the plot, but the use of a combination of virtual reality and artificial intelligence to reconstruct crimes is a compelling concept. This is a real page-turner, with a chillingly evil child at the center of the plot. Recommended.
Reviewed in August, 1999
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Flame War, by Joshua Quittner and Michelle Slatalla
Paperback, Avon Books, 1997, 291 pages, $12.00
 Lawyer wannabe Harry Garrett tries to impress beautiful girl-geek Annie Ames by helping her figure out who bumped off her father with an exploding diskette. They play footsie with the Crypto Urban Militia, an underground organization opposed to the government's plans for public-key cryptography and a warped genius who is marketing a program that thumbs its nose at the feds by guaranteeing absolute privacy for every user. Harry and Annie stumble through secure networks, retrace her father's secret life in computer MUDs and MOOs and uncover a dastardly plot to take over the world.
I kept expecting Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys to show up for a guest spot in this embarrassingly childish book. The characters are cutesy and the plot transparent. But maybe I'm just hostile at paying twelve bucks for a book that took less than an hour to read. With a few exceptions, the technical details are on target, with realistic descriptions of life in an online fantasy world and a decent explanation of the issues surrounding data privacy. I'd like to know, though, how they managed to get online without a modem and how a diskette bloated with enough C4 to make it explode fit into the itty bitty laptop slot without anyone noticing.
Reviewed in September, 1999
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01-01-00: The Novel of the Millennium, by R.J. Pineiro
Hardback, Forge Books, 1999, 320 pages, $24.95
 On December 11, 1999 all the computers in the world stop for 20 seconds. The next day they stop for 19. The day after for 18. It seems to be a countdown to the millennium, but a countdown to what? The FBI pinpoints the source of the presumed virus to a remote Mayan ruin in Guatemala; Japanese astronomers in Peru hone in on the same location when they receive what appears to be a signal from an extraterrestrial intelligence. Throw in a gang of ruthless terrorists hired by a French bureaucrat to dog the FBI's footsteps and steal their discoveries, and you have a real nail-biter in your hands.
Austin-based AMD engineer R.J. Pineiro has penned his best book ever, sort of Indiana Jones meets the Y2K bug. The mathematical puzzle is intriguing, and all of the evidence is laid out before you so you can match wits with the protagonists. The details of how a virus is traced are fascinating, introducing concepts such as cocoons and sniffers. The Mayan subplot had me scrambling to the Internet to learn more. Highly recommended!
Reviewed in September, 1999
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The Millennium Project, By Joseph Massucci
Paperback, Leisure Books, 1998, 360 pages, $5.99
 An embittered and crazy chip manufacturer has planted rogue chips in the country's satellite defense system and the computers used by financial markets. Abetted by a doomsday cult leader with a highly trained kamikaze army, he uses paranoia about the Y2K bug to create chaos in the defense and aviation industries while going after his real target - takeover of the world's financial markets. Center for Disease Control scientists team up with army special forces to stop him.
The computer details are superficial but frightening. Among the items covered are a next-generation biological computer that uses a DNA soup as its memory and the power that a dominant manufacturer can covertly accumulate by strategically placing its hardware and software in critical systems. At heart, this book is what my husband, John, calls a "shoot-em-up." After about page 12 I lost track of the hundreds of people killed and tortured in gruesome and graphic ways. It's a comic-book novel, not terribly sophisticated, but readable. If you like this sort of thing, it's not bad, but certainly not at the top of my list.
Reviewed in October, 1999
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Perfect Harmony, by Barbara Wood
Paperback, Warner Books, 1998, 470 pages, $6.99
 No sooner does Charlotte Lee inherit her grandmother's Chinese herbal business than customers start dying in what appears to be an oblique attack on the company. An old boyfriend turned computer security consultant reappears and searches for the culprit by examining the computerized manufacturing records before a hostile Food and Drug investigator shuts them down. There is a nicely integrated parallel plot that traces the company's history from its origins in turn-of-the-century Singapore.
Perfect Harmony is of the romantic mystery genre and it's a popular cultural turning point when strong computer themes are integrated into the traditional "women's book" market. The depictions of Chinese-American culture, herbal medicine and feng shui are fascinating. Among the computer issues discussed are network security, reconstructing deleted records, illegal computer hacking and the increasing reliance on computer audits for solving crimes. Couldn't put it down.
Reviewed in October, 1999
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Ulterior Motive, by Daniel Oran
Hardback, Kensington Books, 1998, 310 pages, $22.95
 A Megasoft project manager stumbles upon a murder in progress in the company parking lot and by the next day all traces of the dastardly deed are covered up. Teaming with a journalist and a programmer buddy, they probe deeper and uncover a link between the murder and the presidential campaign being waged by Megasoft's CEO. Fired and discredited, they run for their lives while trying to understand and expose a massive conspiracy.
Oran is the former Microsoft manager who invented the start button and the task bar in Windows 95. My hero. His humorous - and depressing - depiction of the corporate culture of a big Seattle-based software conglomerate rings true. Nerd touches include reconstructing deleted files, cracking passwords and back-door access built into widely-distributed software. A fun book and an easy read. The paperback is now available.
Reviewed in November, 1999
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Catch Me, by AJ Holt
Hardback, St. Martin's Press, 1999, $23.95, 327 pages
 When we left FBI agent and computer guru Jay Fletcher at the end of Watch Me, she was disgraced and fired for turning vigilante and blowing away most of the members of Special K, a computer bulletin board for serial killers. Only one survived - Billy Bones - and he has escaped from his mental institution, embarked on another killing spree and is taunting Fletcher to "catch me." Teamed with a skeptical federal marshal, she embarks on a cross-country scavenger hunt, following his trail of grisly clues.
Although computers play a less prominent role in this novel than they did in Watch Me, they are a running thread throughout the plot. Billy Bones is great at cracking through network security and Jay keeps turning to the Internet to research the clever and convoluted clues. Maybe I'm being picky, but some of the details lacked authenticity. She dropped down to DOS to check Billy's cookie file, when everyone knows that they are contained in a file called cookies.txt, and she used Yahoo to search for a long line of poetry when HotBot or Altavista would have been more efficient. Some expert. Good book, though. If you liked Watch Me, as I did, this is a necessary follow-up. Killer of an ending, especially for Sherlock Holmes fans and students of chaos theory.
Reviewed in November, 1999
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Spyder Web, by Tom Grace
Hardback, Warner Books, 1998, $25.00, 451 pagess
 Navy Seal Nolan Kilkenny bails out at the height of his career to pursue a doctorate in advanced computer technology. While slogging away in his Michigan lab he notices a strange, persistent, untraceable network log-in. It turns out to be the Spyder, a prototype of a spy program developed by the CIA to snoop on hostile nations. The program was slipped into Kilkenny's computer during a routine security upgrade by its evil developer, who intends to use the Michigan network as a back door into the world financial markets. The ending is a high-speed powerboat chase on the Chicago waterfront.
The Spyder idea is a good one - the routine uses artificial intelligence to figure out an undetectable exit from a network so that it can report every keystroke back to the spymasters. It makes some good points about network vulnerability - once you get in, you can move around. The author, an architect, did a decent job on the technical details. Once you can move around, you can cause havoc. The plot was a hackneyed shoot-em-up scenario, with double agents posing as reporters and industrial spies working for stereotypical mysterious Orientals who kill without compunction. Everyone in the book seemed to be a scuba diver, the author's hobby. Also available on audio tape, and don't be surprised if it shows up as a made-for-TV movie. Get it out of the library, as I did, or wait for the paperback.
Reviewed in December, 1999
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Murder in the Marais, by Cara Black
Hardback, Soho Books, 1999, $22.00, 354 pages
 Corporate security expert Aimée LeDuc is approached by an aging Nazi hunter who asks her to decipher an encrypted photograph. When she delivers the digitally-enhanced print to her contact in the Marais, the old Jewish quarter of Paris, she finds the woman murdered, a swastika carved in her forehead. She and her partner, a feisty dwarf hacker with a black belt in karate, become embroiled in an 50-year-old tale of betrayal, murder and revenge that takes them through every nook and cranny of the Marais, from the Roman catacombs, rat-infested sewers, the Victor Hugo Museum and even a button factory. They are reminded to "never forget" - the past has a way of influencing the present.
This is a wonderful book: I was on the phone recommending it to friends even before I finished reading it. The evocation of Paris is astounding - you feel like you're there - and even the minor characters resonate. Aimée and her partner can hack into any computer system and they finesse their way into Interpol to match fingerprints, into Vad Yashem for Nazi war records and even tote a laptop into the morgue. Paris is the real star of this book (I could taste the croissants!), but I'm looking forward to reading more of Aimée's adventures soon. Highly recommended.
Reviewed in December, 1999
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The Year 2000 Killers, by Wenda Wardell Morrone
Hardback, Thomas Dunne Books, 1999, $23.95, 342 pages
 Consultant Lorelei Muldoon hires teen hacker Rudy Persichs to write a Y2K bridge, a program that acts as a barrier to noncompliant data entering a network. Rudy is murdered, and the first time his program runs a midtown New York hotel explodes. As a joke, Rudy inserted a simple yet elegant virtual device driver, which Arab terrorists steal and exploit. They kidnap Lorelei and hold a 10-year-old COBOL protegee hostage to help reconfigure the program. An intriguing cast of characters - from Lorelei's absentminded father to a cab driver - race against the clock to unmask the terrorists.
As I'm reading my stack of Y2K thrillers, I'm noticing a trend - the threat is not the millennium bug itself, but rather the possibility of terrorists exploiting the confusion and uncertainty of January 1, 2000 to breach security, tap into networks and wreak havoc. The computer details are well done, explaining complex concepts clearly without being condescending. Good suspense following the team as they figure out how the program works and unveil the terrorists' plans. Recommended. I got my copy from the Cody Branch Library.
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