Spyder Web - Hardcover

Grace, Tom

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0446524077 ISBN 13: 9780446524070

Publisher: Grand Central Pub, 1999

Synopsis

Former Navy SEAL Nolan Kilkenny leads the CIA and FBI on the breakneck pursuit of three brilliant computer "hackers" who have stolen a top-secret intelligence-gathering project that can penetrate the world's most heavily protected computer networks

About this title

Review:

Tom Grace, a Michigan architect, wrote his first thriller in his spare time, in between designing research facilities for IBM and the University of Michigan. That explains why it has both a cool, careful structure and the feel of a solid foundation of scientific research behind its many scenes of absorbing action.

Ex-Navy SEAL Nolan Kilkenny has just begun work at his father's online research facility called MARC (for Michigan Applied Research Consortium) when two high-level hackers steal a CIA device called Spyder and turn it loose on MARC in a test of its strength. Spyder is the ultimate hacking program, with the ability to sniff out every byte of supposedly classified data on the Internet and make it public--creating a financial disaster for the Kilkennys as well as a potential threat to world order.

Using his old SEAL killing skills and his recently acquired cybersnooper abilities, Nolan sets about solving both problems at once. Grace knows enough about designing thrillers that function on visceral as well as intellectual levels to keep the action flowing along with the technical jargon. If you've been wondering where the next generation of Tom Clancys is going to come from, direct your gaze to Ann Arbor and environs. --Dick Adler

From the Inside Flap:

It's the most valuable commodity on earth. Information. So valuable that it's bought, sold and stolen millions of times every day, all over the world. This taut, high-speed thriller dives deep into the murky world of industrial espionage, where greed, extortion and murder are the skeleton keys that unlock hidden treasure-troves of technological and financial secrets. For Western intelligence agencies, industrial espionage has grown into the single largest threat to a nation's economic security-eclipsing both military and political espionage. Adding to the difficulty in dealing with this dangerous trend, the Chinese takeover of Hong Kong has created an intelligence blind spot for the West at a time when the PRC is emerging as a dominant player on the world stage. The CIA's response to the loss of agents in China is an ambitious electronic intelligence gathering project, code-named SPYDER. Nolan Kilkenny knew nothing of these secret worlds when he returned home, to Ann Arbor, to pursue a doctorate in advanced computer technology. Nor did he suspect that his new job, tending the super computers at the Michigan Applied Research Consortium (MARC), would place him in the center of a world wide web of intrigue. For the decorated former SEAL, an apparently harmless technical problem rapidly unravels into a lethal situation. Kilkenny's efforts to isolate an unusual signal, buried deep within MARC's computer network, put him on the trail, and in the sites, of a ruthless trio of information age pirates. Blending an intimate knowledge of high-tech research with powerful characters and riveting suspense, Spyder Web grips the reader from its opening sentence to its explosive climax. Tom Grace has crafted a brilliant thriller that is not to be missed.

About this edition

• Publisher: Grand Central Pub
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0446524077
• ISBN 13: 9780446524070
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 451