If you need an undercover issue sorted then Max Wayne is your guy. A spy and master in anticipating and then fixing, Max will stop at nothing to bring down the bad guys. So when he is presented with a cyber case, Mac pulls in a hacker to complement his abilities. However, they are kidnapped and it seems there are a number of people playing both sides. The world needs Max so it’s time for him to use his special abilities...
The premise of the novel and dealing with
cyber crimes leading to an actual physical kidnap sounded very intriguing and I
was looking forward to learning something “behind the scenes” about
cyberwarfare. However, from the start, it became difficult to read the book.
It is written in present tense but with the
reader being the main character, so it’s all “You pick up the pen and write” or
“You turn the pc on”. This makes for a lot of uses of “you” and as you read the
word keeps jumping out over and over again. The first 8% of the book is mainly
taken up by Max declaring he is going to take the billionaire down and looking
at files and “steeling himself” (this is said a lot) for the investigation as
justice needs to be done. It is repeated over and over that he is determined to
get justice and is looking through files. All of a sudden “you” becomes Max and
the present tense moves into past so “Max narrowed his eyes”. Then it jumped
back again. Certain paragraphs were repeated from one page to the next (not
just once but a couple of times) and hard section breaks are missing to
indicate a change in place – in one paragraph he is in his office and in the
next he is in the billionaire’s office and is able to glimpse at his monitor
and almost figure out his plan. All this after basically being in the office
for five minutes and saying the billionaire could use better security and the
guy just agreeing. No checks into backgrounds, no lead into why his company is
better.
There is a lack of information and a lot
more filler. Evidence is presented about the attacks but nothing is actually
explained. Instead, you get sentences like this that take up the majority of
the writing: The weight of responsibility settles on your shoulders, heavy
and unyielding. You know that the choices you make in the coming hours will
shape the fate of countless lives, that the path ahead is fraught with danger.
It does not bring the narrative forward at all. And roughly seventy times, it
is said: “For you are Max Wayne, the protector who never rests / harbinger /
seasoned spy etc. etc.” Or in one chapter the hacker explains to Max that the
billionaire took everything from their family and ruined them and in the next
chapter Max asks if the hacker’s vendetta is personal. It felt like things were
being said for the sake of being said.
The characters are not always described so
it was difficult to envisage them and some didn’t have names. So when tech
billionaire was mentioned I wasn’t sure whether it was the one they were
looking for or not as the second time he meets him the guy doesn’t seem to
recognise him.
I struggled through this as it could not
keep me interested and even at the end I had no clue what the billionaire had
actually done (I understood the general idea but the specifics are not
elaborated on). The kidnap section seemed an afterthought and over in three
pages. But what really confused me was when it was all done, his name was
printed in the paper along with the expose on what he did. But he is supposed
to be a super-secret spy!
Thanks to Reedsy Discovery and the author
for the opportunity to review the book. Two stars from me.
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