DESCRIPTION: 

A brilliant programmer is targeted by cyber predators!
Jacob Michaels, computer network security-tester extraordinaire, tries to settle into a quiet life of work to polish his cyber security skills after the death of his mother. Jacob is unaware that his growing reputation makes him a person of interest.

Cyber-criminals are hunting for new recruits. They target this brilliant programmer to seduce him into joining their cause. More people are hunting him than just the Russian cyber kingpin.

Jacob sets off to find those who are targeting him. He discovers he’s in the crosshairs of previously unknown global experts. Of course, having his identity erased puts him front and center above anything else.

Buzz, when looking for the easy way, makes a ghastly judgement error and inadvertently crosses the line to the darknet. He pleads to his best friend Jacob for help. Jacob, brilliant as he is, doesn’t have enough experience to help Buzz on his own.

Jacob battles against global cyber masterminds using his knowledge of programming, identity theft, and hacking. He is pulled up short when his security knowledge is dwarfed following his introduction to the distractingly beautiful encryptionist Petra.

Jacob’s challenge is how to keep ahead of the criminals and learn who to trust.

MY REVIEW:

I’ve always liked tech, to a certain degree, which I’m told by my siblings at 63 is not normal for our age range.  So, I thought I’d give this techno thriller a try.

The book ended up being a bit more than I anticipated as it was written like a programming guide.  I take cyber security classes for work, so some of the terminology made sense to me, but so much of it went over my head.  Still, I did find the information interesting and somewhat informative.  Made me realize how the average person has no clue how vulnerable they are as they lay their lives out on social media.  

As for the actual story, you have to break through tons of ponderous code to hack your way to the actual plotline.  Within that is a romance, intrigue, though most of that is pretty obvious, and some danger.  Even though the characters are as one dimensional as you can get, I still felt for Jacob and even Buzz.  Having your world turned upside down wouldn’t be fun. 

It definitely needs an editor as the writing and dialogue is stilted and mostly exposition.  Which would also remove all the needless side stories and over explanations. I also felt there were unbelievable events that happened and not relatable at all.  

If you’re a coder or geek/nerd, you might enjoy the story.  Otherwise, 95% of normal readers will get lost in the tale.  I give it 2.5 stars rounded to 3.