Fiction

The Expert

Name: The Expert
Author: Lee Gruenfeld
ISBN: 9781441703439

by Lee Gruenfeld

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Overview

Computer mogul James Perrein has been arrested on the charge of selling world-shattering encryption technology to the Chinese. For attorney Rebecca Verona, it's an opportunity to advance her career, but it also means defending her former lover, for whom she once left David Zuckerman, the prosecuting attorney who has just been assigned to the case. Rebecca's key witness claims he can prove that the computer chip cannot possibly yet exist, but then Zuckerman and the prosecution drop a bombshell: they have the actual chip. And it may be a major threat to America's security.

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Editorials

The Sun

Gruenfeld has elevated the art of writing the techno-thriller to the point that readers should be issued oxygen masks. The human characters walk, talk and feel like real people. Tom Clancy's Hunt for Red Octoberàis often lauded as the model for the modern techno-thriller. I think Lee Gruenfeld's The Expert is better.

New York Times Book Review

As one might expect from a book called "The Expert," it's an adroit performance, with plenty of double-crosses mixed in with the cross-examinations. [T]he characters are deftly presented. Best of all, Gruenfeld keeps the...detailed discussions balanced with the personal motivations of his cast.

San Francisco Chronicle

If your eyes have been glazing over at the Clinton administration's attempt to control software encryption exports, "The Expert" by Lee Gruenfeld is the timely antidote. Just this week, history was made when Senator Dianne Feinstein brought Bill Gates and other computer moguls into a closed-door meeting with FBI Director Louis Freeh and Attorney General Janet Reno for the first time. A treasure of a novel awaits: Gruenfeld not only understands the vast complications of encryption law, he also knows how to fascinate. Becky and her assistants (two seasoned legal experts whose brilliant and cynical remarks are often hilarious) find the perfect expert and persuades him to testify, Gruenfeld introduces a few twists that startle and enlighten simultaneously. Come to think of it, Gates and Reno might want to read this book before their next meeting with Feinstein-it could give them some tips.