It’s been a while since I read a good techno-thriller with a believable plot from an author that gets the technology right. William Hern’s Chronos is a book I enjoyed and so was The Billion Dollar Heist by Ben Lovejoy and Marc Russinovich’s novels like Rouge Code are also great examples. Now I’ve found another author and book that falls into this category, Andrew Diamond with his latest book Impala.
Meet Russell Fitzpatrick, a geek slightly on the rouge side of things in his youth. Eventually he got the curve before it was too late and now lives an ordinary live he doesn’t like in the US. Only a few pages into the novel his quiet live falls apart quickly when a friend from his shady past is reported dead in a car accident in South America, an odd email arrives and Colombian and Russian bullies start beating him up and stealing his notebook on a regular basis. Constantly challenged between being a white, grey and black hat hacker he stumbles through an incredible search, hide and seek story that is fun to read. This is not only because of the story line with lots of twists and turns but also because the author knows his way around programming, bitcoins, server administrations, zero days etc. The tech explanations are top notch, very accurate, make sense and are also understandable for non-techies. Two thumbs up!