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Title: Conspiracy.Com by R. J. Pineiro ISBN: 0812575059 Publisher: Forge Pub. Date: April, 2002 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.09
Rating: 3
Summary: Preposterous and Gripping Thrillerh
Comment: This book proves that a good writer can take a ridiculous idea and make it into a preposterously unbelievable story that grips you so completely that you stay up most of the night to finish it. IRS agents as heros. A computer database system that cannot possibly work. Evil guys that can watch everything you do on camera in every room in your house. Brilliant Stanford computer whizzes and brilliant banking mavens bamboozled by Cuban gang lords. Presidential candidates stealing billions upond billions. FBI agents that are corrupt and stoopid. Now who would believe all that?
The writer makes a huge number of gigantic stretches so entertaining that you might not crawl out of your chair to eat. Action packed conspiracy upon conspiracy thwarted by a blond female FBI agent and some people just out of college and buried in debt. Lots of major criminals and evil stuff gets a number of important people killed without hardly a policeman anywhere in Austin, Texas to mess things up.
Rating: 5
Summary: Outstanding
Comment: This is my first Pineiro book and it will certainly not be my last one. I picked it up after reading the great reviews it has received and I have to add my own to this growing list.
Think of this book as The Firm meets The Matrix. You have excellent and sympathetic characters like Stanford computer whiz Mike Ryan and FBI Agent Karen Frost, the heroes going up against a ruthless Cuban-American billionaire who has puppets everywhere, including one senator he plans to put in the White House next year. The book does start like the Grisham tale but quickly departs from it in a roller-coaster ride that takes you both through the unexpected twists and turns in both the real and cyber worlds. While Mike Ryan surfs the Internet using virtual-reality hardware reminiscent of The Matrix to fight against a well-hidden but powerful criminal empire in America, Karen Frost carries out her own battles against formidable foes in the real world. Together they form an alliance that takes them through enough excitement and nail-biting scenes to keep you turning pages at a furious pace, until . . . well, I'm not going to say. To make it even more interesting, the IRS is involved in more ways that the reader might be led to believe by just reading the book jacket.
If you want to read a thriller that's impossible to put down, you want to read this one. In fact, buy two and give one to a friend.
Rating: 5
Summary: 5 1/2 stars
Comment: I have to admit that what first grabbed be about this book while browsing through my favorite Houston bookstore was its cover artwork. So I picked it up right there and read through the prologue and first chapter and went straight to the cashier, finishing it two days later.
I'm a lover of thrillers and collect them in hardback. This one way exceeded my expectations. When I read a LeCarre or a DeMille, I pretty much know what to expect: top-notch fiction. Here I got that and much more, plus it was not expected.
So, on to the book. Enter Michael Patrick Ryan, Stanford University's top graduate in computer engineer, already in possession of job offers from all the big guys, plus married to a beautiful and talented woman, Victoria Ryan, also a Stanford graduate in finance. To cut to the chase, they get lured to Austin after SoftCorp, a little-known software company with a single client, the IRS, overwhelms him with a top salary, bonuses, stock options, a new car, plus a top-paying job at an Austin bank for Victoria. But all is not well at SoftCorp and its relationship with the IRS, where computer automation contracts with SoftCorp result in extraodinary amounts of money being funneled straight out of its coffers and into SoftCorp's accounts in the bank that Victoria is working at. From there it goes overseas to finance . . . well, I'm not going to steal the author's thunder.
Sounds familiar so far? Remember Mitch McDeere from Grisham's The Firm? Well, up to this point (just Chapter 1) it's just a well-written high-tech version of the legal thriller that made Grisham a household name. But then R.J. Pineiro takes the novel in a radically different direction, exposing the reader to a heck of a thriller ride smartly woven with artificial intelligence and virtual reality technology, but explained in terms that even a borderline computer illiterate like me can understand, and also learn.
When Ryan suspects that something is wrong and hooks up with FBI Special Agent Karen Frost, the action and suspense escalates to a level that even Grisham could not achieve with The Firm. One interesting aspect of the story is how Ryan gets out of jams using his computer skills rather than the brute-force methods of his FBI sidekick, Karen Frost, and her Desert Eagle .44 Magnum (the same one used by those evil agents in The Matrix).
I really want to give this fine tale more than five stars because it not only kept my attention through 400 pages, but it did so while also educating me in aspects of virtual reality and artificial intelligence that I had never really thought about much. The story also underlies just how sensitive our technology is to hackers and how much we stand to lose if not properly protected from such attacks.
Way to go, Pineiro. I'll be sure to look out for your future books. You've got a new fan.
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Title: Shutdown by R. J. Pineiro ISBN: B0000645XW Pub. Date: May, 2000 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Exposure by R. J. Pineiro ISBN: 0812543890 Publisher: Forge Pub. Date: February, 1998 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Breakthrough by R. J. Pineiro ISBN: 0812543904 Publisher: Tor Books Pub. Date: February, 1999 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Firewall by R. J. Pineiro ISBN: 0765300605 Publisher: Tor Books Pub. Date: March, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: Ultimatum by R. J. Pineiro ISBN: 0812524004 Publisher: Forge Pub. Date: July, 1995 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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