Spyder Web

Doctoral student Nolan Kilkenny is investigating a seemingly harmless technical fault on a secure computer network when he becomes inadvertently caught up in a US security services hunt that puts his life jeopardy.

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