Come into my parlour...

Although this book is just out, it was first published way back in 1997. And that's important to bear in mind whilst reading it. Here's what it's all about...

A tale of industrial espionage, secrets, lies, hacking and spies. Alex Roe and Ian Parnell specialise in the theft of data from various organisations. And they're also quite good at manipulating people as well, finding out their secrets in order to use their skills to achieve their missions. Through their manipulations, they manage to get their hands on a Spyder, a prototype device for the CIA, which can get deep inside an organisation and phone home with all the secrets that it has discovered, whilst erasing its tracks at the same time...

Also involved in this web are ex-KGB agents, the Chinese, MI5, the FBI, the NSA and some University academics. 

There are some interesting ideas in Grace's debut novel. Some of the techno stuff is good, some is startlingly bad (particularly if you just happen to work in the field!) But if you just let that go, then you hope that the rest of the story can distract you from that. At times it does, and at times it doesn't. There are quite a few characters involved, which sometimes pays dividends, but also causes a bit of confusion about why exactly some of the characters are there. There's some SEAL backstory that isn't really required, as well as some romantic nonsense that does nothing for the story.

All along you have a sneaky suspicion that the SEAL angle might just feature later on. It won't come as a surprise to find out that such a suspicion turns out be be correct. The SEAL is the all action American hero, admired and loved by all. He has everything, but there's just a little room left in his heart for love. Wonder if he'll find any?

The plot moves along at a reasonable pace, but switching between all the characters does slow it down a little, so it's not quite edge of your seat stuff. Overall it was a reasonably good read, and I would probably read others in the series, but it's only an average debut, so I hope that mistakes were learnt from...