Amoral anarchist crypto nerds wreak havoc in futuristic thriller

I will confess straight up, I’m a techno-phobe. My comfort zone is historical crime and even (I blush) cosy crime. But I have come to love the Internet as it allows me to sate my hunger for information. At least until my eyes go blurry.  I reckon I’ve become dependent on information technology and Internet communication. I don’t understand the digital revolution but I take whatever crumbs are on offer for techno plebs like me. 

So can you imagine the Internet being shut down without warning? Enter a world in the not-so-distant future where cypher punks (sic) wreak havoc with a world unfamiliar to my kind ie. the despised ‘ageing non-techie’. Emoticoins are the currency of true value, people wear something called mesh, no one is who they appear, hiding behind fictitious online identities. Imagine a world where hackers, barely out of shorts, are in charge. You have entered the setting of Lucky Ghost, a thriller for the cyber generation.

Follow the exploits of journalist Alex Kubelick. At the core of her story is an augmented reality game that soon becomes more reality than game. Should information be free, at any cost? Even if it benefits drug lords, terrorists, paedophiles or rogue nations? Imagine an offshore fortress platform which serves as a data haven, free from government control and run by amoral anarchist crypto nerds. Welcome to the future.

The second in the Martingayle Trilogy (I probably should have read the first book ‘Sockpuppet’ first) Lucky Ghost is well written and scarily plausible. The author Matthew Blakstad has no doubt earned a loyal following of a new generation of computer literate crime readers.

Published by Hodder & Stoughton in July 2017, £16.99.