Superliminal by Andy Kaiser

Superliminal is the first book in a (hopefully successful) series of stories about Dev Manny, an Information Technology Private Investigator (ITPI).

Manny is called in by local law enforcement to help uncover an explanation for the trashing of some computer equipment. A VHS tape is discovered in a PO Box and reveals a psychotic manifesto from the missing owner of the computer gear. He rants about a virus whose release could lead to horrific consequence for humanity. The police need Manny to get to the bottom of this. Is the guy a crank or a terrorist?

Don't let the IT part throw you. While Kaiser is clearly credentialed to set a detective loose in the world of IT, he doesn't beat his reader over the head with it. If you don't know http from ftp or a router from a server, it won't impede your ability to enjoy the story. For IT geeks though, Kaiser offers them an access port into mystery fiction (much like Rob Steiner did with Aspect of Pale Night).

I wasn't sure what approach Kaiser was going to take here: satire or thriller. It turns out he does a bit of both. When the threat turns real, Kaiser dials up the tension. Despite going for a bit of Sam Spade, Manny's self-deprecating and wry sense of humor defuses the situation and his ego before either get too serious.

Kaiser really shines when Manny is "under duress" (I don't want to spoil the story). Manny is forced to complete a vital part of his investigation while suffering through the equivalent of a bad acid trip. The details of Manny's experience are exceptionally well-written and the poor guy lapses into a depression brought on by an existential crisis. It's as if he's living through a Descartes' philosophical proof. It was the highlight of the novel for me. After dropping a couple Lovecraft and Dalí references along the way, I was sold.

As for the technicals, the book is well-edited. The pacing is fast and Kaiser's writing is tight and efficient. Only a couple of typos and one formatting error got through. By the time you pick up the book, these may already be removed.

Andy Kaiser's Superliminal is a wonderful ITPI mystery. It is a fast-paced story driven by a protagonist whose IT knowledge is matched only by his wry sense of humor. The IT spin on detective fiction is akin to what Stross' Laundry series does for spy thrillers, though without the Lovecraftian horrors. Highly recommended.

To get more information about Superliminal, please visit the author's website.

Null_Pointer by Ken McConnell

Null_Pointer is a fresh take on the amateur sleuth mystery genre with a hacker turned detective at its center.  The action takes place in a world just enough removed from the ordinary to make the story interesting. The high concept at its core makes it surprisingly satisfying.

The book opens with the mysterious death of an unnamed programmer from what appears to be a new type of malware that transports the victim into a deadly virtual reality.  Who is behind this and what do they want? And how can anyone kill with sounds and with images on the screen?

Josh Jones suffers from insomnia, a psychologically induced condition that is the result of his tragic past. When he was sixteen, his parents were killed in a car accident that he blames himself for causing. Now in his early 20s, Jones makes a living as a coder at RegTech and does well, he drives a Porsche. But he is a target of an clever and deadly enemy who has been stalking him for years.

Because he can’t sleep, he makes his way to work at a very early hour and discovers that one of the other coders, Glenn, is dead, slumped over by his terminal. At first the death appears to be nothing more than a consequence of poor lifestyle choices finally catching up with Glenn. Still, when Jones gets back home from the police station, he finds that he is rattled by the death. But when his friend Dancia drops by, Jones learns that a hacker called Zemo was found dead by his parents. Zemo’s death was not accidental: a hidden message suggests that someone has killed Zemo and that others are on the target list. Could Glenn’s death and Zemo’s be connected?

As Jones investigates, he discovers that the apparently unassuming coder at RegTech who went by the name of Glenn was really Themis, a hacker with whom Jones worked over the Internet on a college project called MyMovies. Jones discovers a secret message in the computer code—someone is targeting the members of the MyMovies programming team and Jones and Dancia are next.

Null_Pointer does a great job imagining the life of young computer geniuses. McConnell’s characters talk the secret language of root kits, localhosts, virtual machines, C sharp, kernel level access, shells and on, giving the reader a taste of what real hackers living inside a secret hacking culture might talk like. It is a largely hidden world of mostly young men with exceptional skills who make their own rules.  It is a murky world, too. Many of these computer demigods are only known by their aliases, making distinguishing between friend and foe difficult: you never know who hides behind the alias. Communication is done through IRC chartrooms and bulletin boards forums. Rarely do the players actually meet in the offline world. But the death of Zemo occasions a rare meeting between Jones and a security expert known as Psycho in search of clues.

A good part of the detective work involves finding system logs and tracing Glenn’s computer activity. Because nearly all of Glenn’s life has left a digital trail, Jones soon comes across the “how” of the murder -- not only can the images and sounds steamed from the Internet kill, they can also make you do things that you would not normally do:  the story is based on a clever concept that is likely and frightening and just maybe not developed enough. But the “who” turns out to be much closer to Jones than he imagines and much more involved with his family past than he knows.

See http://jjmysteries.ning.com/ for more information about the book.

Author’s website is http://ken-mcconnell.com/

His newest book is Starstrikers.