Back/Slash - Hardcover

Lovejoy, William H.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1575660814 ISBN 13: 9781575660813

Publisher: Kensington Pub Corp, 1996

Synopsis

When a cyber terrorist seizes control of the Worldwide Information Network, computer crimes special agent Luanne Russell hunts down a second computer criminal on the run and challenges him to confront the terrorist.

About this title

Reviews

During a three-week period, an unknown computer hacker robs, ruins or shuts down various computer systems, starting with one in a small bank in New Mexico. The mysterious whiz even gets into the system of the National Security Agency, and at one point has governments frantically disconnecting their nuclear weapons from their computers. Pitted against him are, primarily, Luanne Russell, Special Agent in the FBI's Computer Crimes Squad, and genius hacker K.C. Conrad, a convicted felon on the lam whom Luanne impresses into service. In his hardcover debut, Lovejoy (Red Rain, etc.) painstakingly details every tap of the keyboard or move of the mouse made by his characters, who use their computers at every opportunity. The narrative employs a variety of typefaces, representing words on computer monitors, as it tells its tale in well-defined spurts, with each splash of words timed to the second ("DATE: SAT OCT 17 07:47:35 USERID: montana"). Perhaps computer mavens won't find this excessive, but likely even they will be disappointed with the coy denouement. Lovejoy knows computers inside-out and so will readers after surfing his pages, which present abundant and often fascinating digital lore. But stripped of its cyber-trappings, this is a routine thriller; and those not already in thrall to the silicon god might end up wishing that the operative word here wasn't back\slash, but backspace.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Paperback vet Lovejoy makes his hardcover debut a memorable occasion with an ultracool, swiftly paced tale of cyberspace chicanery. When a seemingly mad hacker launches an escalating campaign of destruction against the world's computers, industrial nations view the threat as serious enough to warrant establishment of an international task force in London. The American representative is Peter Martin, an upper-echelon CIA operative whose principal Stateside contact is Luanne Russell, head of the FBI's Computer Crimes Squad. While the multinational group gets organized, the vagabond vandal (whose user ID is a frowning face) strikes again and again; with but a few keystrokes, phone networks are disabled, interbank fund transfers come to a halt, databases are lost forever, NATO's satellite links rendered inoperative, and an arms dealer's ill-gotten gains transferred from his Swiss account to the Red Cross. In desperation, Luanne recruits maverick computer whiz Kirk Conrad, a man she'd jailed some years previously. Though suspicious of the government's motives, Conrad eventually accepts the challenge. To track down the saboteur (who's gone on to wreak high-tech havoc in Singapore, South America, and the missile silos of nuclear powers), Conrad (a.k.a. Renegade) hacks into GlobeNet, a supersecure commercial alternative to the Internet that's operated out of Zurich. Meantime, Luanne finds that she is working at cross purposes with shifty Peter, who wants the culprit's virulent software and viruses for his own agency. At the eleventh hour, however, Renegade (with a helping hand from his G-woman accomplice) manages to foil, if not identify, the perverse programmer, as Peter and a motley crew of computer cops stage an inconclusive raid on an Alpine redoubt. There's a fine, fairly played twist at the close, which could induce some readers to examine their predilection for sexist deduction. A grand user-friendly yarn that gives new meaning to the words computer error. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Kensington Pub Corp
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1575660814
• ISBN 13: 9781575660813
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 419