Publisher's Weekly Review
In Brookmyre's overly technical eighth Jack Parlabane thriller (after 2016's Black Widow), the Scottish journalist is lucky to land an interview with the online magazine Broadwave, whose editors are eager to milk his connections to an infamous hacker known as Buzzkill. Bucking hacking stereotypes, Buzzkill is a 19-year-old black Londoner named Samantha Morpeth who's juggling caring for her younger sister with Down syndrome-while their mother is in prison-and attending college. All that changes when she's blackmailed, following a group hack of a major bank, by a figure identified only as Zodiac, who instructs her to steal a flashy new product from a big-name tech company or else be exposed for her role as one of the Uninvited (think Anonymous). Sam turns to Jack for help, though their connection is frustratingly tenuous for too much of the narrative. Brookmyre excels when he focuses on human relationships, but too often he gets bogged down in the minutiae of carrying out a hack. Agent: Dan Mandel, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Shy, lacking in self-confidence, Samantha Morpeth is really up against it. She's 19, her mother is in prison, she's trying to qualify for university admission, and she's the sole support of her younger sister with Down syndrome. To add to Sam's problems, a social-welfare agency has decided she is no longer eligible for benefits. But, come evening, Sam, who lacks self-confidence in the real world, becomes Buzzkill, a brilliant and infamous computer hacker. Investigative journalist Jack Parlabane, whose sometimes dodgy investigative techniques have been noted by the blue-ribbon Leveson Inquiry into Britain's tabloid press, may have his last chance to resurrect his career when he's hired by a trendy web magazine. Jack secures an exclusive interview with Buzzkill, but, in short order, Buzzkill is threatened with exposure by another shadowy web presence, and Sam exhorts Jack to help her with the hack her blackmailer demands. Sam and Jack soon learn that failure could be fatal. Brookmyre has produced another compelling thriller, and Sam is a delightfully complex and engaging character.--Gaughan, Thomas Copyright 2017 Booklist
Kirkus Review
Blackmailed by an online stranger calling himself Zodiac, young black Glaswegian hacker Samantha Morpeth teams with scuffling journalist Jack Parlabane in an attempt to turn the tables on her foe.Sam's circumstances are dire: her mother is in prison and her young sister, who has Down syndrome, requires a level of care that Sam, who attends the equivalent of a community college, can't afford with her menial jobs. Parlabane, with whom she's dealt in the past, has been laid low by the declining fortunes of newspapers but is hoping to redefine himself as an online reporter. Samaka Buzzkillhelps him do that by giving him the details of a shocking hack she perpetrated on a major bank. His exclusive lands him a gig at the glossy startup Broadwave. In return, Parlabane helps her deal with Zodiac, who has ordered her to steal a prototype from an electronics giant. That requires him to physically penetrate the company's seemingly impenetrable inner sanctum, taking directions from Sam, who is in her element at a computer keyboard. Timid to a fault in dealing with the government agencies that deny her child care assistance and the schoolmates who bully her, she prizes her status as a "fucking supervillain" on the internet. "I have to remind myself that how I see the world and how a non-hacker sees it can be very different," Sam muses. To Brookmyre's (Black Widow, 2016, etc.) credit, he makes the reader uncommonly comfortable in that world. As crowded as the book is with technical terms, they never stop the action for want of explanation. And Sam's hacking ploys are cool in the extreme. An enjoyable departure from its predecessors, Brookmyre's eighth Jack Parlabane novel works exceptionally well as cybercrime fiction, but it's the human element that makes it tick. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Nineteen-year-old Samantha Morpeth is being bullied, her mother is in prison, and Sam is left to care for Lilly, her Down syndrome-afflicted sister. Only on her computer in secret is she a skilled hacker and member of an anonymous group. One of them, Zodiac, blackmails her into breaking into a tech company to steal a device worth millions. Meanwhile, Jack Parlabane, an investigative journalist just getting his life together after a botched job, is coerced by Sam into helping her. His burglary know-how and her computing ability make them a good team, but things quickly go wrong. Jack is trapped with a dead body and a bloody weapon as the police approach, while Lilly is kidnapped to force Sam's compliance to Zodiac, who seems always one electronic step ahead. Verdict Scottish author Brookmyre's eighth Parlabane title (after Black Widow) begins slowly but quickly develops into a deadly race against the clock. Jack and Sam learn to trust each other, mostly, but numerous plot twists surprise them and the reader. Sam is a fully developed character in a tech world that Jack and the reader now truly appreciate. [See Prepub Alert, 1/23/17.]-Roland Person, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.