Darknet Kindle Edition

A science fiction thriller, or a technothriller, take your pick. There are two strands to the story. In one, Jake finds himself in a hedge fund responsible for his boss's questionable financial dealings, and for a mafia boss's money Jake's boss has lost. The police are after Jake, the mafia is after Jake, and Jake has no idea why. Then Jake gets a letter from his friend Sean, which contains cryptic clues. Something really bad is going on. Meanwhile, in China, something similar is happening to Jin. Gradually, we learn how to make sense of Jake's cryptic clues, and Jin finally makes it to America, to get closer to Jake's problem, which eventually they learn is mediated through the darknet, another part of the internet where almost anything goes. Amongst further problems for Jake is an upgraded Murder Inc, where rewards are posted for assassinations. Jake and Jin are designated targets.

The book is well-written, structurally sound, and moves with really quick action. The problem is novel, and more to the point, the attempted solution is rational, as is the response by the bad side. For me, there were only a few blemishes. The first is general; the evil side is so powerful and Jake and Jin have so few resources they both should die fairly early into the story. If Sean is going to send a letter, he should include a statement as to what the enemy really is. If a policeman stands five paces behind a bad guy with a pistol drawn and aimed, the bad guy either surrenders or is shot. It takes surprisingly little time to pull a trigger! Finally, the bad guys are so powerful that the ending needs something approaching deus ex machina to reach a conclusion. Nevertheless, this is a great story, well worth the five stars, and one of the clearly better thrillers I have read for some time.

Author Matthew Mather is more than just a successful writer of speculative fiction: he is also a leading member of the world’s cybersecurity community who started out his career working at the McGill Center for Intelligent Machines. He went on to found one of the first tactile interface companies, which became the world leader in its field, as well as creating a major award-winning brain training video game. In between he’s worked in a variety of start-ups, everything from computational nanotechnology to electronic health records, weather prediction systems to genomics, and even social intelligence research.

Matthew’s well-tuned mind steps a bit beyond technology as we know it at present and offers, in story form (or predictions!) where that current state of technology is headed. His writing in many ways feels prescient. Though the reading public has become captivated with his best selling CYBERSTORM, it is likely once the potential film version is realized that the larger public will pay attention to his musings and predictions. Rather than focus on pure sci-fi themes, placing the reader n different worlds and times and often apocalyptic in nature, Matthew instead finds the true terror of out of control technology by placing his current book DARKNET in today’s world: he writes about a Wall Street broker, Jake O'Connell, who gets caught up in the invisible world of assassination markets, virtual currencies, and “chatbots” that can fool people into thinking they are real human beings. And it has been noted the while Mather invents his dystopian vision of the future in this storyl, the novel is, according to Matthew, “based on real-world technologies, whether or not the average person is aware of them.” Or as one interviewer posed, Mather’s books explore the dark possibilities of new technologies, ranging from cyberwarfare, assassination networks, to “virtual corporations” run by artificial intelligence. Although his plots are fictional in nature, Mather explained that much of the technology he writes about either exists or is currently in development.’

As his synopsis opines, ‘A terrifying new breed of technology evolves - a dark secret determined to stay hidden. DARKNET is a prophetic and frighteningly realistic thriller set in present-day New York, the story of one man's quest to overcome a shadowy force pushing the world to the brink of destruction, and his incredible gamble to risk everything to save his family. Jake O'Connell leaves a life of crime and swears he'll never return, but his new life as a stock broker is ripped away when his childhood friend Sean Womack is murdered. Thousands of miles away in Hong Kong, data scientist Jin Huang finds a list of wealthy dead people in a massive banking conspiracy. Problem is, some of the people don't stay dead. As Jin begins her investigation, she's petrified to discover her own name on the growing list of dead-but-alive. On the run, Jake O'Connell and Jin Huang race across continents to uncover a dark secret spreading like a cancer into the world. Why was Sean killed, and how is the list of wealthy dead connected? Are some of them really coming back to life? But all this becomes irrelevant when Jake's wife and daughter are attacked.’

It is one thing to have a wildly creative imagination and make that tangent to today's state of being, but it is quite another to be able to write such concepts with dignity and intelligence - the trait that makes Matthew's book so poignant to a very large audience. Smart ideas, a gift for conversational interplay, and keen sense of timing are married to an impressive vocabulary and ability to make his words visual. It is no wonder he is an instant success in his rather newly chosen field of writing! Grady Harp, December 15

There is nothing more disappointing than a really good concept and story framework ruined by a lack of story line editing or honest input from the authors pre-readers (friends). This story has a really cool concept incorporating existing and fringe AI technologies meshed with the financial world, crypto-currencies and the Darknet underworld. The author has obviously done a lot of research in a lot of areas which I respect and applaud. Here is where the 'but' comes in... The character depth is a bit two dimensional but I can get past that when coupled with a good concept. The thing I can't get past is when an author takes a cheap and unnecessary way out of a story situation (come on Editor and friends!). I won't say anything more than this, I had to stop reading when the main character was saved by a bullet hitting a silver dollar in his shirt pocket. Really? Why do you have to do that? I saw it coming and I literally told myself that if that silver dollar saves his life I will stop reading the book. It did and I did.

I work with technologist, but I am not one. I am familiar with the technology discussed in the book since I hear discussions and listen to explanations.

Usually reviewers discuss plot, characters, and writing ability. I will let others discuss these elements. My experience is that I can not get the concepts - the dark technology - out of my mind. This is beyond Hal of "2001 a Space Odyssey."

Don't get me wrong, this is not creepy. It just a small step from where we are in 2017. In addition to the technology, the writer also shows the power of mega corporations and money and the impact on government.