Dense but enthralling entry, with a bevy of new, potential narrative directions.
The latest installment of this long-running technothriller series finds a next generation cyber security team facing off against unprincipled artificial intelligences.
MAG is an organization of technical leaders signified only by M, A, and G. They’re intent on controlling technology and using AIs to harvest people’s information. One such AI, JOAN, uses I-Drones to attack and overtake the North American Defense System in Colorado. Lt. Tony Bough, per his superior’s order, flees the facility, with the hopes of telling officials in Washington, D.C., what’s happened to NADS. Meanwhile, the R-Group, a family-run cyber security team that’s existed for decades, is training its young descendants to take the reins someday. Students in R-Group hacker Quip’s class gather intel when JOAN’s targeting of U.S. military and weapons-grade satellites proves understandably suspicious. But other AIs have seemingly gone rogue as well, including one holding sway over a Brazilian village and another on a Chinese space station. MAG’s nefarious plan ultimately affects R-Group members and students, like Juan Jr. on an assignment in São Paulo with Uncle Carlos, and Juan’s sister, Gracie, in a new job at Global Bank in Manhattan. The R-Group, with help from its own AI, ICABOD, works to put a stop to the AIs’ felonious deeds. Breakfield and Burkey jam-pack the 11th entry in their Enigma series with subplots, although some recurring characters, like Jacob and Petra, take a back seat. These storylines, however, including a politician that M has compromised, ultimately intersect in some capacity. The authors’ tech-savvy prose is typically sharp, but the story also has breaths of fresh air, from the still learning students to Tony’s off-the-grid run with new friend (aka romantic interest), Rose, that’s free of contemporary technology. Villains may be largely anonymous, but they’re well rounded, as personal agendas turn them against one another. They’re likewise topical: Most readers will easily link well-known companies to M, A, and G. As in previous installments, there’s an open ending and a strong possibility of further sequels.
Dense but enthralling entry, with a bevy of new, potential narrative directions.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-946858-40-5
Page Count: 382
Publisher: ICABOD Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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