The Devil's Code (Kidd Series #3)
John SandfordBooks.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
When Kidd—artist, computer whiz, and professional criminal—learns of a colleague’s murder, he doesn’t buy the official story: that a jittery security guard caught the hacker raiding the files of a high-tech Texas corporation. It’s not what his friend was looking for that got him killed. It’s what he already knew. For Kidd and LuEllen, infiltrating the firm is the first move. Discovering the secrets of its devious entrepreneur is the next. But it’s more than a secret—it’s a conspiracy. And it’s landed Kidd and LuEllen in the cross-hairs of an unknown assassin hellbent on conning the life out of the ultimate con artists…
It wasn't the official agencies that worried Kidd so much as the very dangerous men with the very different agenda that he suspected were acting behind the scenes. And he knew that unless he and LuEllen found what had really happened to Jack, and quickly-the next people to vanish might very well be themselves.
Synopsis
Kidd and LuEllen get caught in the crosshairs of an assassin hell-bent on conning the life out of the ultimate con artists.
Publishers Weekly
Would that Sandford, creator of the marvelous and bestselling Prey thrillers, had heeded Thomas Wolfe's advice about going home again. Instead, he's resurrected a hero from his previous crime series (The Fool's Run, etc.) in his latest thriller, which begins when the infamous Kidd--artist, computer expert and master criminal--is called in to investigate the mysterious death of a former colleague in Texas. Working with the victim's sister, Kidd slowly uncovers a massive computer conspiracy masterminded by St. John Corbeil, the president of a Texas microchip company, whose excesses spiral out of control when the company's product (after gaining a foothold in the world of intelligence) bombs in the commercial marketplace. At first Kidd is inclined to steer clear of the seamier side of the conspiracy, but when several members of his own high-powered criminal group are implicated and the National Security Agency begins scrutinizing his operation, he brings in his part-time partner and lover, LuEllen, to help with the investigation. Their probe turns dangerous when the corporate kingpin hires a pair of assassins to hunt down Kidd, eventually forcing him to focus on a mano-a-mano duel with Corbeil. Sandford pens plenty of stirring action scenes as Kidd's encore unfolds, and it's clear that the author likes playing with his hero's shady sensibility and the chemistry he enjoys with the versatile and erotic LuEllen. But despite his edgy and sometimes provocative narrative style, Sandford struggles to bring a sense of urgency to the narrative. Kidd's return will be welcome news for Sandford fans, but the tepid plot makes his comeback a pedestrian affair. 400,000 first printing; major ad/promo. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
Our ReviewA Criminal to Die For
The pseudonymous John Sandford is best known for his durable series of suspense novels (Night Prey, Eyes of Prey, etc.) featuring Minneapolis homicide detective Lucas Davenport. But earlier in his career, writing under his given name of John Camp, Sandford produced a pair of striking -- and very different -- thrillers featuring the artist, hacker, and occasional criminal known, simply, as Kidd. Nine years after his farewell appearance in The Empress Files, Kidd makes a welcome return in a cleverly conceived cyberthriller called, appropriately, The Devil's Code.
Kidd is an intriguingly contradictory antihero: a successful painter who supplements his income through illegal computer activities, a pragmatist who believes in the predictive qualities of the tarot. His latest adventure begins with a pair of enigmatic, seemingly unrelated murders. First, Terence Lighter, a midlevel bureaucrat for the National Security Agency, is shot to death outside his Glen Burnie home. One day later, Jack Morrison, a fellow hacker and former associate of Kidd's, is likewise shot to death, ostensibly while breaking into the data banks of AmMath, a high-tech firm specializing in the development of encryption software. Shortly afterward, Morrison's sister, convinced that her brother was an innocent victim, enlists Kidd's aid in uncovering the circumstances that led to Jack's death.
Kidd, along with some colorful cohorts from his checkered past, soon finds himself imperiled on two related fronts. First, his investigation into AmMath's shadier dealings inadvertently triggers a second series of murders. At the same time, his supposed connection with a mythical hacker/terrorist group named Firewall makes him the target of an intense, highly publicized federal investigation. Kidd's attempts to exonerate Jack Morrison, unearth the details of a treasonous conspiracy, and avoid capture by the combined forces of the FBI and NSA form the substance of this furiously paced, unfailingly entertaining novel.
Although The Devil's Code may be less viscerally exciting than the Lucas Davenport books, it still offers a full display of its author's many gifts. These include his clean, no-frills style, his flawless ear for dialogue, and his precise reporter's eye for character and setting. But the most impressive aspect of The Devil's Code -- and the true heart of the book -- is its convincing re-creation of the arcane world of the professional hacker. Sandford's familiarity with that world, together with his easy mastery of abstruse technical details, enhances the narrative at every turn, lending it an air of seamless, unobtrusive authenticity.
--Bill Sheehan
Bill Sheehan reviews horror, suspense, and science fiction for Cemetery Dance, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and other publications. His book-length critical study of the fiction of Peter Straub, At the Foot of the Story Tree, has just been published by Subterranean Press (www.subterraneanpress.com).