Jon Morgan is a retired police Superintendent and francophile who, it is said, has consequently seen almost everything awful that people can do to each other. He relishes quality writing in all genres but advises particularly on police procedure for authors including John Harvey and Jon McGregor. Haunts bookshops both new and secondhand and stands with Erasmus: “When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I may buy food and clothes.”
A first novel from this author which worked well as a fast paced, rather satirical, thriller involving global hacking; the dark net; various neo-Nazi; anti Semitic (in all its forms i.e. anti Jew and Arab); extreme Islamist conspiracies to cause chaos; break up the existing order and substitute some form of far right new order, itself manipulated by a shadowy figure known as Erasmus (surely not THAT Erasmus!) hell bent on world domination via control of the internet.
I enjoyed the thriller aspect of the novel and it ticked along, switching from a garden shed in the UK as a base of operations for a complacent hacker, to clean rooms in Berlin, betrayals, violence, Greece and its Athenian slums, with a swipe at an anarchist community and their inability to make a decision in less than four hours about the most banal issues – surely the fundamental flaw in anarchist theory, then off to California with a portrayal of a corporate campus that feels based on a combination of Google / Microsoft / Apple/ Amazon.
Whilst I didn’t fully understand the hacking and technological references – ok let’s be truthful here – I probably only understood about 10% of them, preferring, in my own luddite way, the allure of paper, the plot probably does need a basic understanding of the techno speak used. I do not have it and I suspect the book is not aimed at my interest or indeed my age range.
There is, notwithstanding, considerable erudition displayed, whether consciously or unconsciously, beyond the world of the computer. My particular favourite is the use of ‘ingenuity’ in its original and now almost obsolete form meaning ‘naivety.’ No doubt there are others to be ferreted out amidst the serious critiques of Islamist radicalisation and the contradictions inherent in its philosophy versus its practices – the horror occasionally being mitigated by dark humour.
Worth a read if you are into technology, related conspiracy theory and there is the possible start of a series or, at least, preparation for a sequel. Good summer holiday reading!
