Customer Reviews

The Jewel in the Crown (SecurityCheck, Inc Series #1)

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SecurityCheck Inc hire Ann as computer hacker extraordinare (because she hacks into their super-secure system in two seconds flat), but her IT skills fail to pick up a few details that would have prevented SecurityCheck getting caught up in a scam that almost costs them their lives (Google the websites if you want to check my facts).

The Tower of London is operated by Historic Royal Palaces, not the British Tourist Authority. The British Tourist Authority is a travel information service. It promotes attractions, but has nothing to do with their operation.

While MI5 (more correctly called the Security Service) does provide security advice to organisations, their focus is around prevention of terrorism, espionage and sabotage, not theft. The role of MI5 is defined in law - the kind of project proposed by Peter to SecurityCheck would be outside their remit.

MI5 security advice focuses on the protection of infrastructure, not tourist attractions. The MI5 website links to the website for the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure, which has a 'top 10' security guidelines. One of these is about the use of visitor passes - which John & co did not get issued when they visit MI5 headquarters.

On these points alone, a group of computer geeks and security experts should have done enough research to realise that there was something fishy in the project. There were a few other minor annoyances, like Peter having a cellphone in Thames House (many UK government buildings I have visited require cellphones to be left at the security point), the Queen Mother is never called the 'Queen Mum', roads are always called 'the M27' (not just M27) and no flights are allowed to fly over central London (so SecurityCheck should have been caught before they even reached the Tower).

The plot holes at the beginning meant I didn't really care about the characters - if they were dumb enough to get themselves into this situation, how can they be clever enough to come up with the clever machines etc? Also, John and Gary make a big deal when Sully 'borrows' a motorcycle without asking, then proceed to do a whole lot of breaking and entering and other stuff, while Ann impersonates an MI5 agent. Parts of the book read like a guidebook, other parts are so laced with testosterone I skipped over them. I generally enjoy thrillers (even testosterone ones), but I don't like factual errors. Sorry.

Plot was very good. Not crazy about writing style. I did not connect with the characters and some of the action was a little far fetched. On the other hand, I kept reading and did not want to put it down until the bad guys were caught.