The upside of the digital age is our ability to contact one another in moments. The downside is our lack of privacy. The powers that be intercept and record our conversations and messages. Our thoughts and expressed feelings are common knowledge to authorities determining whether we are security risks.
To be sure, our enemies hack our computers and phones for nefarious espionage purposes, thus threatening our country's national security. Then there are the criminal hackers endeavouring to get at our assets. Which justifies the hacking of intelligence and security services hacking millions of texts, straight and coded, 24/7.
Meanwhile, the supergenius/whizzkids/boffins are hard at work improving digital efficiency. To date they've achieved success after success. Technology is about bettering itself. In his Swedish novel David Lagercrantz addresses this effort. In The Girl In The Spider's Web -- success!
By going to the next level a scientist realises that he went too far. His quantum computer is not faster but it can crack any and every firewall. Every NSA (National Security Agency) secret is revealed to those possessing his Swedish invention. Ought he destroy it?
In the event, the choice is made for him. He is found dead. Suicide? Murder? And his creation is missing. But it is too complex for the possessor to hack, whoever he, she or they are. This story is part of the Millennium series. Put on the case is female literary creation Lisbeth Salander.
On her own Salander's extraordinary hacking skills fail her, but a boy with a gift enabling him to solve any equation assists her. The villains turn out to be a member of the Russian Duma, and Salander's sister. In the penultimate chapter shoot-out, only one gets away. What happens to the state-of-the-art invention is left to a further book in the series.
As this reviewer noted more than once, Scandinavian crime thrillers are on a par with those in the US and UK. I find, her father a mass murderer among them.
The Millennium series is engrossing. Read the lot and see for yourselves.
True Love
Before marriage we think in terms of Mr or Miss Right. Of soul mates. Of happily ever after. Of the match made in heaven. We are conditioned by poetry and plays, movies and song to believe that love conquers all.
Marriage is the shocker. Oughtn't I h Salander a mite too complex. Which is explained by the obstacles she had to overcome growing upave waited and done better? He complains that she can't cook like his mother. She sniffs that he treats her like a servant. Who thought that sex was so quick? Divorce? What happened to the girl he was infatuated with in his teens? He idolised her. She reciprocated his affections.
They vowed not to break up, but their parents moved away. She would have been the perfect wife. This is the theme of The Best Of Adam Sharp by Down Under author Graeme Simsion. The title character is the narrator.
Adam was an average boy whose average father forced to learn the piano. In time Adam grew to like it. He was hired to provide the musical entertainment in a bar. The scrivener uses the titles of many popular songs to point up the emotions of the fictitious character.
Aussie TV serial actress Angelina enters the bar and his life. She's married, but no matter. They have a torrid albeit short affair. The love of both their lives. Circumstances separate them and they lose touch. He has a number of live-in girlfriends, and Claire his fiancée.
Twenty-two years later Angelina contacts him with her husband's approval. Married for the third time, living in France. In their 40s, they resume their affair. Mature now, is it as good as they remembered?
Hundreds of pages are devoted to answering that question, as well as to Claire's reaction when she learns of it.
Much is made of the meaning of love, marriage, fidelity. Not that Claire has been chaste during his absence.
Simsion's conclusion won't satisfy all readers. Still, the number of plausible endings is limited.
The use of song titles here isn't original, but they succeed in enhancing this literary soap opera.
If you're in the market for an adventure thriller, this isn't it.
