Rating: 
Summary: Slick and Quick #2
Review: It is beginning to seem that Jeffery Deaver hit his peak with The Bone Collector, if The Blue Nowhere is any indication of where he's headed.I really wanted to like this book; I've been a long-time fan. But The Blue Nowhere just doesn't have the intensity, the passion, the heart of Deaver's earlier books. It's possible that in the course of doing so much research to validate his thesis that none of us are safe from the stealthy probing fingers of hackers, crackers, whatever, the characterizations suffer terribly. A couple of the people come to life, but not nearly enough to keep one thoroughly engrossed. This is an entirely plot-driven book, eminently readable but only barely plausible. The pacing is certain and keeps one turning pages, but more from curiosity to see how he's going to pull it off rather than from any depth of caring for the characters. Finally, the title is repeated so many times in the course of the book that it becomes like a long infomercial, where you want to say, "Okay. I got it. I got it." Bottom line: all the research in the world cannot be a substitute for characters grounded in some kind of recognizable humanity. So the book whizzes along at the speed of downloaded data on the best cable connection anywhere. But at the end, it's hard to care about people who just aren't fully fleshed and rendered believably human.
Rating: 
Summary: This is Deaver's best work to date.
Review: I'm a bit surprised by how much I like Jeffery Deaver's books. I only just realized that I've read almost all of them. He's writing the same sort of page-turner/thriller as someone like a James Patterson, but he's so much better at it. He really does seem to be, in the truest sense of an overused phrase, getting better with each book, rather than worse. And he really does have a talent for tightening the screws and upping the suspense with each twist and turn of the plot, a talent which is on ample display in his newest book. In this one, we've got a twisted computer hacker, code-named "Phate" (according to the book, real hackers use "ph" rather than "f"), who's using his skills to get close to people by cracking their computers and getting to know every detail of their lives. Then, he uses this information to lure them to their deaths: the more difficult it is to reach someone, the better. The police work out a prison release for another brilliant hacker, Wyatt Gillette, to help them catch Phate. Gillette is a good guy who was apparently in the wrong place at the wrong time: the government decided to make an example of him for cracking an encryption code. All he wants is to reconcile with his ex-wife, who he lost during the trial, and because he paid more attention to his hacking. Computer terms and technical details play a big part in the story and Deaver does a pretty good job of explaining things and keeping the story moving, including a brief glossary of terms at the beginning. Sure, maybe there are some details which aren't a hundred percent accurate, but unless you're a die-hard computer-phile, it probably won't make that much of a difference. This is a very swift-moving, suspenseful ride. According to the blurbs, the book has already been optioned as a movie and it could be a good one in the right hands. And it doesn't read just like a screenplay--I think it was a book first and foremost. These are characters I'd like to see again. Are there more Wyatt Gillette novels in store? A very fast-moving and gripping book.
Rating: 
Summary: Trying to get on the Cyber bandwagon -- and failing
Review: I used to be a big Deaver fan -- back when he wasn't deliberately trying to write "bestsellers." Check out his older books -- the location scout series written under the name William Jefferies are particularly good. It seems like once Deaver got his Hollywood deal (The Bone Collector) he started writing for mass consumption instead of sticking to things that inspire him. My sense after reading this book is that the "cyber" theme is forced ... selected merely for its sales appeal, and not because it is of particular interest to the author. I had the same feeling after reading his last two "blockbuster" novels -- they are well-crafted mimics of other bestsellers, and have resulted in big sales at the sacrifice of creativity.
Rating:
Summary: Delicious Terror!
Review: You won't ever look at your computer the same way after you read this thriller. Deaver outdoes himself with the twists and turns in this cyber scare--this is one of his best!
Rating:
Summary: Marred by technical flaws
Review: I really love Deaver's books & I own all of them, and I was really hoping to enjoy this book. However, I think he has hit a bit of a sour note with this one. This is a real shame. The rule is: write what you know. In general, Deaver does, which is why his books rock. But his unfamiliarity with computers means that this techno thriller doesn't quite work. Sure the other trademark elements are there (a plot that twists and bucks like a bronco, characters who may never be who they seem to be, sharp, snappy writing, praeturnaturally competent protagonists who continually up the ante on each other, suspense that just builds and builds and builds) but the technical details just make the book fall quite flat to a tech-geek like me. I can handle a little bit of authorial largesse with the details or simplification for explication to readers (eg things like ICQ or usenet are not "sub-nets" of the internet but are protocols or services that run over it). I can handle way over-repeated references to be people as "wizards" (though it gets annoying after about the 20th time) or the over-cliched views of hackers as surviving on mountain dew, pizza, pop-tarts and jolt. But... [and don't worry - the following are not spoilers but are revealed very early on in the book - I am still only 2/3 of the way through, and it is unprecedented to write a review this early, but the following things bug me. Quit now if you think this might ruin something.] A casual reader probably won't notice much wrong in the technical details. And much of it is explained quite well. But to someone like me (who, like some of the characters, messed around with BBS's in the 80's and has rooms full of obsolete computing equipment) it's a bit galling to be told that a "real" hacker has a nervous habit that makes him very often type out "virtually" on a tabletop pretty much everything he says, and likewise in his sleep. This is just too cliched to be believable. Ditto being told that a supervirus (actually a trojan) which is executable can be activated by simply viewing a jpeg file in a newsreader; or that a virus will make a computer's graphics dim or lag when it is activated just pushes credibility too far. (Suggested cure for Trapdoor - run in command line mode). Still other things are blown out of proportion: a super-program that sends "sonar pings" in relays to find out where a target is would not be gee-whiz cool to any half-competent programmer or user; check out /sbin/traceroute on any linux box or its equivalent on a mac or a pc. Most galling is the book's major premise: that someone could be so immersed in the digital world that he (effectively) can consider the real world to be equivalent to a MUD (multi-user dungeon, an online multiplayer fantasy world). I mean, MUD's are a fairly minor and prosaic part of the online world; they don't have the status or the pervasiveness attributed to them. And therein lies the catch: I can't empathise with the main characters. Other than the technical flaws, the underlying story is fine and just as good as any of his other books. I just wish that he had had this manuscript checked by someone (perhaps even a real Wizard :) who could have prevented some of these errors -- they are enough to jolt me out of enjoying this book as much as his others. And to reprise another theme: it's great we keep getting these books in Sydney several weeks ahead of the US :)
Rating:
Summary: Another Hit from Jeffery Deaver
Review: I was really excited when I saw this ebook: I've been waiting impatiently for the next Jeffery Deaver title ever since reading Empty Chair and Devil's Teardrop. The Blue Nowhere (a term for cyberspace and the dangerous personal and criminal connections it can create) features Wyatt Gillette, an imprisoned hacker who agrees to help track down Phate, a person for whom the blue nowhere of the book's title holds murderous possibilities. Deaver's latest title is full of intrigue, suspense, and twists and turns of the plot. If you're a Deaver fan, or if you're interested in a good thriller about the internet and personal privacy, you should definitely check out the ebook.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring? Really?
Review: This book was far from a bore. Having been raised with computers in my life - knowing just about enough about them to get by and do no damage to them - I didn't find the explanations at all patronising, rather helpful for the people out there who don't have a clue about computers. To be honest I didn't find that these explanations were blocking the plot and they do give some aspect of time. I was a true teenager when I first read this book and it is obviously aimed at us in general. Phate downloading whatever-they-ares in several minutes really meant nothing to me...only that he'd outsmarted them once again and got a lot more than they'd anticipated. I would recommend this book to anyone who was willing to dismis these so-called obvious mistakes - which a mind like mine would certainly miss, being educated in languages certainly doesn't make you aware of specialist terms.
Rating:
Summary: The Blue Nowhere
Review: Deaver's novel, The Blue Nowhere explores the modern sociological experience of the impact of computers and the internet on modern society. It is a novel of intrigue, suspense, and mystery in which murders are occurring that can be tied to computer intrusions and the use of social engineering by the master hacker, Phate. Detective Andy Anderson of the California computer crimes division, while an expert computer user himself, realizes he is in over his head with this case and decides to get another master hacker, Wyatt Gillette, temporarily released from prison to help him track down and capture Phate. Wyatt has been banned from any computer usage while in prison and works out a deal with Andy Anderson that should he be successful in capturing Phate he be allowed a computer in prison, one not connected to the internet.
As the book continues the plot takes many twists and turns but the murders continue and Phate begins to prey upon those that track him. It is a game to him. He has developed a program named Trapdoor which infiltrates the computers of his victims and steals their personal information which he then uses to socially engineer his victims. Social engineering is a common tool used by hackers to gain access to systems by supplying enough personal information about a person to make the person being engineered think that the hacker is who he is trying to portray. Social engineering can also be used against the weaknesses of the target victim and identity theft, a big problem in the information age, is a part of social engineering.
Deaver continues to unravel his story allowing us first to think that one of the investigators is working with Phate, and finally we learn that Wyatt knew Phate from being part of an online hacker group with him. Wyatt had just never seen him in person. Phate lures Andy Anderson to a place known as hacker's knoll and kills him. Frank Bishop ends up working with Wyatt to continue the case. There are other murders and even a robbery. After many twists and turns, in which we are given quite a bit of information on computer hacking, Frank Bishop and Wyatt find Phate-Jon Patrick Holloway-packing up his equipment to make a getaway. There is a struggle and Frank is knocked unconscious by Phate. Wyatt and Phate struggle and one of the investigators, Patricia Nolan, who followed them, barges in and stuns both, Wyatt and Phate with a stun gun. We find out that Patricia is not who she portrayed herself as and that she has ulterior motives. She wants the source code to Trapdoor. She ends up torturing Phate and gets the code from him, and then she kills him by lethal injection before turning on Wyatt. Wyatt is rescued by another investigator, Tony Mott, but Patricia Nolan escapes and we never learn her true identity. Frank finds Phate's computer and we are subjected to a very exciting ending as the story is wrapped up.
This story offers some very interesting lessons that affect us today. Our identities, or as C.W. Mills defines as our personal biographies, are very important to our sociological well-being. However, since the age of computers, now known as the information age, never before has it been so easy to steal personal identities and when you consider this issue, it can be frightening how easily your own identity can be turned or used against you. Your own identity can be used by others to cause you great personal damage and even harm. We see this in some television ads these days, but most of us probably think that it won't happen to us, maybe we should think again as this is going to be a continuing problem plaguing our modern society.
Rating:
Summary: The Blue Amazing
Review: This book was amazing. It took me just 3 days to read it and it felt like I was in the book. Deaver has made one of the best books that is related for the 2000 and on. It really shows you how dangerous the web can be. Also, it was very suspenseful, and you never knew when they would catch him.
Rating:
Summary: Top Notch Writing
Review: This is the first Deaver novel I've read, but it certainly won't be the last. It is fast paced, but not cluttered with unnecessary characters. The story is complex, entertaining, and convoluted so it keeps you guessing. If I had one disparaging thing to say, it would be that his "asides" to explain to the reader all the various computer terms got a little tedious. I often skipped whole paragraphs of explanation. Those types of things could be part of an appendix rather than as part of the story. Readers who need the explanations could find them, and those of us who do not could rush along with the story.
|
