Book
The blue nowhere : a novel
Record details
- ISBN: 9781501139802 (paperback)
-
Physical Description:
print
xiv, 490 pages ; 20 cm - Publisher: New York : Pocket Books, 2016.
- Copyright: ©2001.
Content descriptions
| General Note: | Includes excerpt from "The Sleeping Doll." |
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Hackers -- Fiction Computer crimes -- Investigation -- Fiction Serial murderers -- Fiction Santa Clara Valley (Santa Clara County, Calif.) -- Fiction California -- Fiction |
| Genre: | Suspense fiction. Mystery fiction. |
Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at BC Interlibrary Connect.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Other Formats and Editions
Show Only Available Copies
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kitimat Public Library | PBK Dea (Text) | 32665001926205 | Paperbacks | Volume hold | Available | - |
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Monthly Selections - #1 March 2001
In the clever cyber-plotting of this whodunit set in Silicon Valley, the perp is known early on. The challenge lies in capturing somebody who seems to exist solely in the world of virtual reality. Archetypal cyberspace renegade Jon Holloway is a maladjusted sociopath enamored of playing a real-life version of a computer game called Access, which involves the simulated killing of well-protected people. After a woman deceived by someone posing as a computer-industry acquaintance is murdered, the Computer Crimes Unit recruits a jailed hacker to scrub the victim's computer for evidence. Pale, wraithlike Wyatt Gillette initially cooperates to gain some jailhouse privileges. But then he recognizes the nom de cyber, Phate, from his own Access-playing days and commits to nailing the guy. Three more murders prove that Phate-Holloway is a master of disguise, able to penetrate even the vaunted Computer Crimes Unit. Deaver frequently digresses from this compelling plot to delve into all manner of computing lore, including hacking, viruses, Unix code, usenet groups, ISPs, and Internet esoterica. Deaver's latest will draw not only his usual complement of fans but also 'net mystery mavens, who will get a real boot out of this. ((Reviewed March 1, 2001)) Copyright 2001 Booklist Reviews - Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2001 March #1
Just when you thought it was safe to check your e-mail, psychokiller specialist Deaver (Speaking in Tongues, 2000, etc.) shows just how malignant the human ghost in your machine can be.Jon Patrick Holloway is a hacker who prefers to be called Phateâand prefers to use the knowledge he gets about other people from hacking into their systems to set them up for murder. Bored with cracking the encryption codes for Fort Knox and the Pentagon, he's devised a program that will get him into virtually any computerand allow him to scan its memory, reconfigure its software, bring its hard drive crashing down, or give him all the intimate details he needs to worm himself into the user's confidence as he goes in for the kill. But Lt. Andy Anderson of the California State Police, though he's light-years behind the murderous geek, has a secret weapon: Wyatt Gillette, an imprisoned computer wizard he's temporarily freed so that he can go byte to byte with his old cyber-acquaintance Phate. Forget about the halfhearted echoes of that other unofficial police assistant Hannibal Lecter, and the halfhearted linking of Phate's attacks to historic computer anniversaries; what Deaver's really interested in is prolonging the Kabuki dance of his two state-of-the-art cavemen by having each of them endlessly second-guess the other via ruses, bluffs, and more masquerades than Mardi Gras. Despite the real paranoia Deaver's premise taps into, thoughâif every computer on earth is subject to tampering, what information can you trust?âtheconstant string of disguises works against development: after the briskly suspenseful opening chapters, there's no place for this endlessly ingenious tale to go.That doesn't mean Deaver doesn't provide his trademark throat-clutchers, diabolical double-crosses, or action scenes that suddenly turn inside outâonly that this time there are just too many, and too few memorable characters who live through them. Copyright 2001 Kirkus Reviews - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2001 April #5
How do you write a truly gripping thriller about people staring into computer screens? Many have tried, none have succeeded until now. Leave it to Deaver, the most clever plotter on the planet, to do it by simply applying the same rules of suspense to onscreen action as to offscreen. Much of the action in this novel about the hunt for an outlaw hacker turned homicidal maniac does takes place in the real world, but much else plays out in cyberspace as a team of California homicide and computer crime cops chase the infamous "wizard" hacker known as Phate. The odds run against the cops. With his skills, Phate can not only change identities at will (a knack known as "social engineering" in hacking parlance) but can manipulate all computerized records about himself. The cops have a wizard of their own, however: a former online companion of Phate's, a hacker doing time for having allegedly cracked the Department of Defense's encryption program. He's Wyatt Gillette, coveting Pop-Tarts (the hacker's meal of choice) and computers, but also the wife he lost when he went to prison and it's his tortured personality that gives this novel its heart as Wyatt is sprung from prison, but only for as long as it takes to track down Phate. The mad hacker, meanwhile, no longer able to discern between the virtual and the real, has adapted a notorious online role-playing game to the world of flesh and blood, with innocent humans as his prey. As he twists suspense and tension to gigahertz levels, Deaver springs an astonishing number of surprises on the reader: Who is Phate's accomplice? What are Wyatt's real motives? Who is the traitor among the cops? His real triumph, though, is to make the hacker world come alive in all its midnight, reality-cracking intensity. This novel is, in hacker lingo, "totally moby" the most exciting, and most vivid, fiction yet about the neverland hackers call "the blue nowhere." Agent, Sterling Lord Literistic. (May 4) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information. - School Library Journal Reviews : SLJ Reviews 2001 July
Adult/High School-An engrossing thriller for the electronic age, packed with action, surprises, and adventure. Deaver's killer reaches inside his victims' minds, learns their deepest fears and vulnerabilities, and uses that knowledge to gain access to them. Phate is a techno-genius who has devised a method of invading individual computers and gaining admittance to all the files stored there, including e-mail. Worse, he is gaining "access" to his victims before he kills in what to him is just a real-world virtual-reality game. Faced with an electronics sociopath, the California State Police Computer Crimes Division "borrows" a jailed hacker to help them follow the complex electronic trail of the perpetrator. Wyatt, still facing a year of his prison sentence for ostensibly cracking a Defense Department code, is more than happy to be back online and on the trail of the killer hacker or "kracker." Readers are led to wonder if Wyatt, along with a number of the other characters, is what he appears to be. Besides being an engrossing mystery with lots of interesting characters, The Blue Nowhere is an absorbing history lesson about the Internet, a dictionary of computer terminology, and a compelling, if frightening, description of what is possible, and maybe probable, in our electronically based future.-Carol DeAngelo, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
