Technothriller – The Trapdoor by Hal Glatzer #HalGlatzer @thomaspr

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The Trapdoor

Amazon / Goodreads

MY REVIEW

The Trapdoor by Hal Glatzer was originally published in the 80s and I think it would have been a realistic, frightening look at the computer world. I still enjoyed the book and remember those early years of computers and see how this would have people believing it could really happen….because it has.

Hackers put in trapdoors, so they can easily access a forbidden computer system and do what they will.

The Lightning is a hacker and his name is Joe. Of course, he is a nerd. 🙂 Anyone seeing him would recognize that about him. He loved his pocket protector and wore it everywhere, carefully choosing the pens. Even before he ever touched a computer, he loved to tinker with electronics, whether it was his electric train or the family’s television.

He makes his living taking from others, but gets in way over his head. There is a heart stopping moment or two, as his life is put on the line.

The Trapdoor is a great introduction into the world of computer hacking. It took half the book for me to get involved, but I would recommend meeting Joe and seeing what the repercussions are for crossing the line.

Hal Glatzer used his knowledge of computers to take us into his world and I enjoyed visiting it with him.

I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of The Trapdoor by Hal Glatzer.

Animated Animals. Pictures, Images and Photos
3 Stars

AMAZON SYNOPSIS

Originally published as a paperback in 1986, The Trapdoor was one of the first novels to be set in the underground digital world of cyber-thievery and online pornography. In the book, a hacker gets into trouble with organized crime, and has to hack his way out. The title refers to a sinister technique for theft; but it also alludes to the risk of falling into one’s own trap!
A forerunner to today’s notorious hackers, such as “Anonymous,” the protagonist of The Trapdoor is Joe (alias “The Lightning”), a techie nerd who lives quietly in a small apartment, surrounded by computers. Secretly stealing money online – as much for the thrill as for the money – is a flirtation with danger to which many of the earliest hackers were addicted. But Joe is drawn into a wider digital underworld until he’s not safe anymore. Suddenly he has enemies. And it’s bad enough when they try to kill him; but it’s worse when they steal his secret hacker identity.
Progress in computer technology was once front-page news. In 1983, TIME magazine – for the first time ever – didn’t name a “Man of the Year.” Instead, the editors named the personal computer “Machine of the Year.” Computer entrepreneurs like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were just getting noticed; and magazines were launched to help people use those new “machines”. At first, noisy modems slowly dialed computers over telephone lines; data storage was limited to mere kilobytes, on easily-damaged floppy disks. But technologies were constantly surging forward, and illegal computing activities surged right along with them.
Readers of The Trapdoor will get a glimpse of that early time, when anything seemed possible, and the shadowy side of high-technology was just coming into view. And readers of a certain age, who were intrigued by computers in the ’80s, will enjoy The Trapdoor as a fond nostalgic trip back in time. So The Trapdoor has now been re-issued in the most up-to-date form for a novel: the e-book.

ABOUT HAL GLATZER

Hal Glatzer wrote his first piece of fiction in elementary school. He submitted The Mysterious Island to his third-grade teacher, who handed it back with this critique: “Great imagination. Terrible handwriting.” Perhaps that is what led, years later, to his embrace of computerized word processing! Visit his WEBSITE to learn more.

Conserving the Radio Spectrum (Sams, 1984). Glatzer was one of the founders of the Computer Press Association, a virtual press club for fellow writers and editors in the field. He served as its vice president, and for six years chaired the committee that created and presented the annual Computer Press Awards for excellence in high-tech journalism.

Glatzer has subsequently had more mystery novels published; but his first was The Trapdoor. “Considering how far information technology has progressed since the early ‘80s,” he says, “I want to give the computer users of today a good idea of what life was like when the computer revolution began, and give people like me, who were there, then, a trip into the past. And the best way to bring that vintage paperback to today’s tech-savvy readers is to turn it into an e-book.”

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Midnight Blue by D S Land & The Timekeeper by Jordana Barber #DSLAND @JordanaBarber

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Midnight Blue over MexicoI was really excited about Midnight Blue Over Mexico by D S Land because it seemed to be a bit different than the usual technothriller, you know, greed, conspiracy, technology…used for good and evil… characters that kept me reading, caring, hating…and I have to ask, could you do without your cell phone…for a minute, an hour, a day, to save your life and those of others?

Amazon  /  Goodreads

Animated Animals. Pictures, Images and Photos  3 stars

I had added Midnight Blue Over Mexico by D S Land to my TBR on 10.9.12 and The Timekeeper by Jordana Baker on 10.12.12

The Timekeeper (Aliis Mundi, #1) I saw the cover…and the title…and thought The Timekeeper by Jordana Barber would be filled with awesome characters…IT WAS…a lot of danger and action…THERE WAS…some hot romance…CAN’T DO WITHOUT THAT.. a satisfying ending…GOT THAT…and a desire to read more…I DO.

Amazon Goodreads

Animated Animals. Pictures, Images and Photos  3 Stars

 

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#BooksFromTheBacklog – Fifth Avenue by Christopher Smith #ChristopherSmith

Books from the Backlog is a fun way to feature some of those neglected books sitting on your bookshelf unread.  If you are anything like me, you might be surprised by some of the unread books hiding in your stacks.

If you would like to join in, swing by Carole’s Random Life in Books.

Fifth Avenue by Christopher Smith is one of those thrillers that reads like a true story. I downloaded this from Amazon on 6.5.12.

Fifth Avenue (Fifth Avenue #1)

Amazon / Goodreads

GOODREADS BLURB

Look beneath all the power and all the wealth that represents New York City’s Fifth Avenue, and you’ll find greed, blood, revenge. In the thriller Fifth Avenue, each intermingles within a revered society that is unprepared for what’s in store for it when one man finally strikes in an effort to destroy another man for murdering his wife thirty-one years ago.

Louis Ryan is that man. George Redman, his wife, two daughters and their close friends are his targets. Both men are self-made billionaires who came from nothing to stake their claim to Fifth Avenue. But when Louis Ryan hires an international assassin to literally rip the Redman family apart, a series of events that can’t be stopped catapults them all through a fast-paced, hard-edged thriller in which nobody is safe. Secrets are revealed. The Mafia get involved. And George’s two daughters, Celina and Leana Redman, come to the forefront. More than anyone, it’s they who are caught in the throes of their father’s past as Louis Ryan’s blind desire to kill them all takes surprising turns in his all-out effort to see them dead.

Fifth Avenue by Christopher Smith is one of those books that tugs at my conspiracy theory bug. I mean, Fifth Avenue, all that money and power. I downloaded it on 6.5.12 and it averages a 3.6 on Goodreads.

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#Books From The Backlog – Lethal Circuit by Lars Guignard @Lars_Gu

Books from the Backlog is a fun way to feature some of those neglected books sitting on your bookshelf unread.  If you are anything like me, you might be surprised by some of the unread books hiding in your stacks.

If you would like to join in, swing by Carole’s Random Life in Books.

Lethal Circuit (Michael Chase #1)

Amazon / Audiobook / Goodreads

GOODREADS BLURB

A Chinese satellite is on crash course with Earth.
It contains enough plutonium to irradiate a large city.
And that’s the good news…

In the tradition of Tom Clancy, Michael Crichton, and Robert Ludlum, comes a new hero.

Michael Chase is a twenty-six year old backpacker, a recent college grad, an amateur. He flew to Hong Kong to find his missing father. Four hours later, he’s running for his life. The Chinese Secret Police want him dead. The Conspiracy wants him dead. And the one person who he thinks is on his side, may want him dead too. If Michael is going to live, he’ll need to find a hidden piece of Nazi technology lost since World War II. And he’ll have to do it before anyone else. Because if he doesn’t, a little plutonium is going to be the least of his problems.

I do love my mystery, suspense/thrillers. Lovin’ this cover and the ‘written in the tradition of Tom Clancy, Michael Crichton and Robert Ludlum, authors I am very familiar with. How can I possibly resist?

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Horror of the SciFi Kind – Nomad by Matthew Mather @phuturenews

 

Nomad by Matthew Mather is Book I of The New Earth Series.

This is one of those books that left me with tons of questions and what ifs.

Nomad (Nomad, #1)

Amazon US  /  Amazon UK  /  Amazon CA  /  Goodreads

MY REVIEW

Action packed, thought-provoking, could this really happen novel that held my attention as the clocked ticked down.

“At most, we have a year, perhaps only months, until the anomaly reaches us.”

It’s the end of the world and I can’t imagine the fear and panic. All kinds of questions came to mind. Would I want to know, seeing as how there is nothing I could do? Would I want to be one of the last ones standing? How would I spend the last moments of my life? Who would I spend them with?

I quickly became involved with the characters, especially Jess. I love a strong, independent, kickass female, and she surely fits the bill. She is into extreme sports, served in Afghanistan, and left a leg there because of an IED. She may be a bit more than self-confident, maybe a bit reckless, but she does not have a death wish.There is nothing that will stop her from doing the right thing.

My first thought would be to let bygones be bygones, but would others think that? What about other countries? Would they want to take the last shot before the Earth ceases to exist?

A free for all, no holds barred human slaughter.

Matthew Mather did his research for Nomad. I don’t understand all the technical jargon, but he broke it down into easy to understand language. Well enough for me to me to be totally engrossed in the story, instead of thinking of it as a school subject.

The end of the world is coming and I felt it on every page, especially after watching the Solar Eclipse on 8.21.17. The danger and suspense just kept increasing, and it wasn’t just because of Nomad.

There is no ending. There are four books in the series, and I WANT THEM!

Animated Animals. Pictures, Images and Photos 4 Stars

GOODREADS BLURB

Something massive is coming…

And it’s heading for Earth.

That’s what Dr. Ben Rollins, head of Harvard’s exoplanet research team, is told by NASA after being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night. His first instinct is to call his daughter, Jessica, who’s vacationing in Italy with his wife. “Something’s coming,” he tells them. “A hundred times the mass of the sun. We can’t see it, don’t know what it is yet, but they’re calling it Nomad–and in just months, the Earth may be destroyed.”

But what is it? And how did they miss detecting it until now? In a frantic race against time, Dr. Rollins must unravel Nomad’s secrets. A mysterious clue surfaces in his old research papers from the end of the Cold War, more than thirty years earlier…

The world erupts into chaos as the end approaches–and Ben discovers that his wife and daughter are trapped in Europe. The key to humanity’s survival rests in the final answers Dr. Rollins pieces together, in the midst of his desperate scramble across continents to find his family before Nomad swallows the planet.

MORE ABOUT NOMAD

A story of family and redemption set amid a brand new category of cataclysm–all the more plausible and terrifying as the science behind it is vetted by a team of world-class astrophysicists from CERN, SETI, the Keck Observatory and more. It even has its own simulation video, included at the end of the book.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Matthew MatherMatthew is the million-copy bestselling author of CyberStorm and Darknet, and the hit series Nomad and Atopia Chronicles. He started out his career working at the McGill Center for Intelligent Machines, going on to become one of the world’s leading members of the cybersecurity community. In between he’s worked in a variety of start-ups,everything from computational nanotechnology to electronic health records to weather prediction systems. He spends his time between Montreal and Charlotte, NC.

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TechnoThriller – The Masters’ Key by Helen Hanson @HelenHanson

The Masters’ Key by Helen Hanson is FANTASTIC!

This is one of those reviews that, if I was on my toes, would have been written back in May of 2015, and is part of my Blogging Shame Challenge.

Helen Hanson is firmly on my grab-every-time-I-see-one-of-her-books list.

The Masters' Key (Masters CIA Thriller, #2)

Goodreads  /  Amazon US  /  Amazon UK  /  Amazon CA

MY REVIEW

I love conspiracies and political thrillers. The Master’s Key by Helen Hanson is filled with over the top suspense.

Technological terrorism that is terrifying to even think about.

We have betrayal, computer attacks, revenge, malice, and so much more.

The characters run the gamut. From good to bad:  the evil bitch that’s pissed she didn’t get her way, the greedy partner, the CEO whose demands cross the line, the sick woman who’s heart is pure and the man who loves her.

The Masters’ Key is very frightening…filled with the technological implications and disasters that can occur when a psycho has you in his sights. I love trying to figure out characters motivations, but this psychos thoughts are so far past my understanding. Would anyone be safe, anywhere, if he wanted to get to you? I don’t think so.

I would like to reach into my Kindle, grab him around the throat, and…

Action packed. The tension level is off the charts, as I see the bad guys in every shadow, around every corner, and behind every door.

I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of The Masters’ Key by Helen Hanson.

Animated Animals. Pictures, Images and Photos 5 Stars

 

GOODREADS BLURB

Clint Masters returns from the pit of disaster . . .

With his allies at the CIA, Clint battles a mysterious new threat targeting his company and the citizens of Boston who now live in fear. Under a gag order from his last confrontation, Clint can’t reveal the truth about the tragedies.

In spite of city-wide panic, Clint sees the terror attacks as personal. And he learns that not everyone at the CIA wants to catch the killer. With public suspicion at redline, Clint must fight to survive.

But can Clint capture the elusive and ruthless maniac? Or will he become the next victim?

An espionage and suspense thriller with a techno bent, THE MASTERS’ KEY is set in Boston and DC.

The Masters CIA Thriller Series: RECOMMENDED READING ORDER:

3 LIES $3.99
THE MASTERS’ KEY $3.99
DEAD STORM  $3.99

A BOX SET IS AVAILABLE FOR $9.99

INTERVIEW WITH HELEN HANSON:

Q: What does Helen Hanson bring to the thriller genre?

HH — Heart-skipping pace, life-critical stakes, and broody, looming danger wrapped in a twenty-first century skin. We live in a time when technology surrounds us. The kid down the street has instant access to information unfathomable a century ago. Consequently crime had gone digital, online, and victims rarely see what hit them.

Because of my background, I present the technology employed by my characters in a fluent way to readers. They say I write about techno topics in a way that makes them enjoyable. I don’t burden the prose with jargon. Most readers want to know what kind of gun is fired, not how to field strip it.

Q: Tell us about your characters.

HH — My characters are unique beings, each requiring a different spark to light the fire. I explore their sparks.

I create believable characters with realistic dialogue engaged in page-flipping action. I like to watch ordinary people find the extraordinary in themselves when facing adversity. No one is surprised when Jason Bourne takes out a detachment of Marines, but we can’t say that about waitress Maggie Fender.

My protagonists don’t possess the Special Forces skills of a super spy. They stumble into dangerous situations and use technology to advance their position even if it isn’t strictly legal. The stakes have to be worthy of a fight.

Plus, they’re witty people who possess veins of humor. As in life, it punctuates disaster.

Q: Where do your thrillers take place?
HH — The action in my thrillers takes place in a variety of locations around the globe. So far, we’ve landed in: Russia, Boston, San Francisco, Pakistan, Washington D.C., Santa Cruz, Venezuela, Half Moon Bay, and Mongolia. Since the characters across my novels exist in the same story world, they often appear in other works, though the current titles are not a single series.

Q: Do you write your thrillers in series?
HH — At the request of my readers, I have. The sequel to 3 LIES is now out and called THE MASTERS’ KEY, with a third volume on deck. After that, I’ll expand from DARK POOL and OCEAN OF FEAR because those characters are bound to find new adventures. With an FBI agent, a hacker, and a robotics expert in the lineup, they offer continuous fodder for action and suspense

ABOUT HELEN HANSON

Helen HansonBestselling author Helen Hanson writes thrillers about desperate people with a high-tech bent. Hackers. The CIA. Industry titans. Guys on sailboats. Mobsters. Their personal maelstroms pit them against unrelenting forces willing to kill. Throughout the journey, they try to find some truth, a little humor, and their humanity — from either end of the trigger.

While Helen writes about the power hungry, she genuinely mistrusts anyone who wants to rule the world.

Helen directed operations for high-tech manufacturers of semiconductors, video games, software, and computers. Her reluctant education behind the redwood curtain culminated in a B.S. in Business Administration with concentrated studies in Computer Science. She also learned to play a mean game of hacky sack.

She is a licensed private pilot with a ticket for single-engine aircraft. Helen and her husband spent their first anniversary with their flight instructor studying for the FAA practical. If you were a passenger on a 737 trying to land at SJC in 1995, she sends her most sincere apologies. Really.

Born in fly-over country, Helen has lived on both coasts, near both borders, and at several locations in between. She lettered in tennis, worked as a machinist, and saw the Clash at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium sometime in the eighties. She currently lives amid the bricks of Texas with her husband, son, and a dog that composes music with squeaky toys.

If you enjoy her books, please consider writing a review. If you don’t, please be kind.

For a FREE Thriller, visit HelenHanson.com

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One Sentence Review – After The Shock by Scott Nicholson @eScottNicholson

After:  The Shock is not my first Scott Nicholson story and it will not be my last.

The cover tells a lot about what’s inside.

The Shock (After, #1)

Amazon  /  Goodreads

MY REVIEW

I was so caught up in The Shock…An apocalypse brings out the best and worst in some people and Scott can make his characters shine as they step up and grow up after being thrown into turbulent and dangerous times…and I was pissed when it came to an end, leaving me needing the next book, and the next, to find out how it will end.

Animated Animals. Pictures, Images and Photos 4 Stars

GOODREADS BLURB:  A massive solar storm erases the world’s technological infrastructure and kills billions. While the remaining humans are struggling to adapt and survive, they notice that some among them have…changed.

Rachel Wheeler finds herself alone in the city, where violent survivors known as “Zapheads” roam the streets, killing and destroying. Her only hope is to reach the mountains, where her grandfather, a legendary survivalist, established a compound in preparation for Doomsday.

Other survivors are fleeing the city, but Zapheads aren’t the only danger. Rogue bands of military soldiers want to impose their own order in the crumbling ruins of civilization. When Rachel discovers a 10-year-old boy, she vows to care for him even at the risk of her own life.

And the Zapheads are evolving, developing communal skills even as they lay waste to the society they will eventually replace.

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