This is a very different and very good thriller featuring an MI6 agent, Elliot Kane. After a tricky and long Mideast deployment, he is back in London when he receives an encrypted video depicting himself and someone else in a hotel room somewhere. The video is fake, and the message is from a female colleague and MI6 training school classmate conveying that she's in trouble. Unlike almost every other read in the genre, the solutions and plot development rely on modern technology. Elliot is adept with malware, spyware and a few devious devices that can access any information on any device within hundreds of feet. He uses the dark web to ascertain that Joanna is in Kazakhstan and heads off to Astana without head office approval or even letting them know where he is going. Once there, he enters a bizarre world where Russian cyber-warriors are trying to bring down the country, while British petroleum interests fight a more traditional battle to maintain the status-quo. The country has become a battleground because of the discovery of a massive oil field just 50 miles from the Russian border. Plot, counterplot, and disinformation lead to a complex story, one with frightening detail. This is way above the usual modern thriller.
No comments:
Post a Comment