Interrupt

In Silicon Valley, profoundly deaf 12-year-old Wayne Faulkner tries to call 911 when an intruder stuns his father in the back yard - and 40,000 phones suddenly go dead. Wayne's father, Andy, can't figure out what happened, and he ought to see it at once: he's a telecom engineer, after all. But the terrorist Interrupt is clever, and Interrupt doesn't mind murder...
Andy, soon a prime suspect, must identify Interrupt before the next killing - for Interrupt has taken Wayne. But Interrupt may be anybody, even the beautiful lineworker, Nell Colson. Anybody at all.

Readers keen on the latest phone technology may enjoy this tech-based thriller; those wanting plot, pacing and three-dimensional characters may hang up early on. Protagonist Andy Faulkner is a a young design engineer for AT&T in Silicon Valley who, in neatly symbolic irony, is the divorced father of a deaf 11-year-old boy. Andy tries to appease the memory of his bullying, bridge-building father and (another neat symbol) fights acrophobia. He is chagrined when the failures of two vaunted new systems are tied to calls on his own phone, and humiliated when the telco's security chief fires him. Of course Andy sets out to find the villain. The mysterious terrorist, dubbed Interrupt, triggers more temporary system failures, kills a woman technician and ends up kidnapping Andy's son as part of an extortion plot against AT&T. Much of the narrative is related in techie-talk ("source code and object code"), which sometimes sounds like baby talk ("A crosspoint was the place in a switching network where two communications channels intersected"). Too much action takes place offstage--including the final resolution. The novel's biggest failure is the Interrupt's hokey motive--hardly a live wire on which to base a tale.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This superior techno-thriller combines today's software and telephonic engineering with a suspenseful chase. Andy Faulkner is the father of 12-year-old Wayne, who communicates by TDD (a teletype hooked to the phone system) because he is deaf. To save the system and clear his name, Andy finds himself locked in a high-tech struggle with an invisible saboteur. Andy, Wayne, and their new friend Nell, a telephone line worker, are complex and likable characters. In addition, the clues are fair and the double plot--telephone vandalism and child-in-danger--mingle without confusion. What a treat to leave Russian submarines and return to the wilds of Palo Alto for techno-drama! First novelist Dwiggins renders the software discussions both accessible and interesting to the moderately computer-literate reader, and the climactic race to preserve the national phone service will appeal to anyone who has tried to call a parent on a holiday. Recommended to patrons who read Byte or Popular Science and to adolescent techno-groupies as well. --Elsa Pendleton, Boeing Computer Support Svces., Ridgecrest, Cal.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.