A thrilling crime drama that paints a shrewd portrait of Silicon Valley.
In this novel, a Silicon Valley programmer searches for his missing best friend and stumbles on the possibility that the startup his pal works for is engaged in a criminal conspiracy.
Ted Hara is surprised when Sumire Yamashita suddenly shows up at his home in Japantown in San Jose—she’s the sister of his childhood friend Ryu as well as an old flame. But she’s not there to rekindle their relationship—she’s convinced Ryu has vanished and wants Ted to help track him down. At first, Ted assumes there’s an innocuous reason for Ryu’s disappearance, but then he discovers some alarming evidence to the contrary. Ryu works for well-funded but oddly secretive startup SüprDüpr and was told to keep his employment there private. These are peculiar facts given the ostentatiously boastful world of Silicon Valley firms, a strange cosmos memorably portrayed by Palter. In addition, Ted hacks into Ryu’s phone and realizes that his account has been deleted—not only has he vanished, but he has done so without even an electronic trace. Moreover, SüprDüpr is nearly inscrutable—despite its low profile, it has amassed hundreds of millions in financing and is quietly buying property in San Jose. Even less comprehensible is the company’s commitment to spend $100 million to build a new shelter for the homeless. In order to investigate further, Ted secures a job as a mathematician at SüprDüpr and discovers that it is building groundbreaking teleportation technology. Ryu’s disappearance may have something to do with his insistence that the tech was plagued by potentially dangerous problems. Even darker, Ted begins to suspect that SüprDüpr’s interest in the homeless population—which is inexplicably decreasing—is more sinister than philanthropic.
Palter artfully juxtaposes two different interpretations of Silicon Valley culture. On the one hand, it is a satirical self-parody of visionary creation, a world in which all of the denizens believe they are on the cusp of transforming the world. As Ted sardonically puts it, “It’s Unicorn Valley. We’re building the future. Reinventing the world. At least that’s what everyone in this town says.” On the other hand, there is a dark underbelly to that desire for breakneck disruption, one that can be nihilistically dismissive of human life, a bleakness Ted confronts. At the heart of the author’s deftly discomfiting tale is the engrossingly complex depiction of Ted—saddened by the death of his parents, he grapples with his loneliness in the same way his father did, through the stupefaction of alcohol. He’s Japanese but also impatiently dismissive of the culture he inherited—he can’t bear to sit thorough the traditional tea ceremony his mother held so dear. In addition, Palter unflinchingly anatomizes the problem of the homeless in Silicon Valley, one that may be intractable precisely because of the contempt so many have for this group. This outburst from Jesus, the chief of police in San Jose, seems aimed at the quiet disdain of many residents: “You think decent people want to live in the middle of their shit? In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve got a crisis on our hands.” This is an uncommonly captivating novel, one both dramatically gripping and politically uncompromising.
A thrilling crime drama that paints a shrewd portrait of Silicon Valley.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781950627615
Page Count: 354
Publisher: Pandamoon Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Everything you’d expect from Grisham, and this time something more.
After more than three decades of producing bestselling legal thrillers, Grisham tries his hand at a whodunit.
Eleanor Barnett wants Simon Latch to write her a will. That’s pretty much his job description, since practicing law in Braxton, Virginia, for 18 years hasn’t given him much opportunity to spread his wings. But the case of Netty, as she insists he call her, is different. She’s an 85-year-old widow whose second husband, Harry Korsak, left her with something like $20 million in cash and securities. She has a pair of stepsons, Clyde and Jerry Korsak, she’s determined to disinherit. And she already has a will, a document Wally Thackerman drafted a few weeks ago that basically allowed him, as Simon soon discovers, to pillage her estate. So instead of following his usual procedure and asking his longtime secretary, Matilda Clark, to type out the will, Simon types it himself and has it witnessed without saying anything to her. Of course he’d never do what Wally Thackerman did, but given his poverty, his gambling addiction, and his estrangement from his wife, Paula, whose income is a lot more stable than his own, he wouldn’t mind drawing just a bit on Netty’s wealth. As it happens, his new client turns out to be more trouble than she’s worth, maybe even more trouble than she would’ve been worth to Wally. And when she ends up dying, her death is swiftly identified as murder, with every indication that Simon killed her himself. The whodunit is unremarkable, but Grisham handles the legal complexities of the case with professional finesse and adds a wonderfully poignant portrait of a nothingburger lawyer trying his best to keep things more or less legal.
Everything you’d expect from Grisham, and this time something more.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9780385548984
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A standout in the series.
The sixth adventure of Harvard symbology professor Robert Langdon explores the mysteries of human consciousness, the demonic projects of the CIA, and the city of Prague.
“Ladies and gentlemen...we are about to experience a sea change in our understanding of how the brain works, the nature of consciousness, and in fact…the very nature of reality itself.” But first—Langdon’s in love! Brown’s devoted readers first met brilliant noetic scientist Katherine Solomon in The Lost Symbol (2009); she’s back as a serious girlfriend, engaging the committed bachelor in a way not seen before. The book opens with the pair in a luxurious suite at the Four Seasons in Prague. It’s the night after Katherine has delivered the lecture quoted above, setting the theme for the novel, which features a plethora of real-life cases and anomalies that seem to support the notion that human consciousness is not localized inside the human skull. Brown’s talent for assembling research is also evident in this novel’s alter ego as a guidebook to Prague, whose history and attractions are described in great and glowing detail. Whether you appreciate or skim past the innumerable info dumps on these and other topics (Jewish folklore fans—the Golem is in the house!), it goes without saying that concision is not a goal in the Dan Brown editing process. Speaking of editing, the nearly 700-page book is dedicated to Brown’s editor, who seems to appear as a character—to put it in the italicized form used for Brownian insight, Jason Kaufman must be Jonas Faukman! A major subplot involves the theft of Katherine’s manuscript from the secure servers of Penguin Random House; the delightful Faukman continues to spout witty wisecracks even when blindfolded and hogtied. There’s no shortage of action, derring-do, explosions, high-tech torture machines, attempted and successful murders, and opportunities for split-second, last-minute escapes; good thing Langdon, this aging symbology wonk, never misses swimming his morning laps. Readers who are not already dyed-in-the-wool Langdonites may find themselves echoing the prof’s own conclusion regarding the credibility of all this paranormal hoo-ha: At some point, skepticism itself becomes irrational.
A standout in the series.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780385546898
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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