Only Chris's swift thinking enables him and Ian Ayres to escape, and he warns his computer expert Zoey Doucet to stay away from the office and assume she's being electronically tapped. Chris and Zoey are an item since the previous book INTRUSION also set in San Francisco. Taking a deep breath, Zoey attempts to summon up a skilled hacker and thief who has gone off the grid. If he is still around, and allows her to stay with him, she just might be unfindable. Meanwhile Chris and Ian, a man Chris barely knows, are running from a shadowy agency with the presumed powers of the NSA but even less accountability. Knowing this agency may exist is why someone wants them dead.

We get a view inside this new agency with a seasoned NSA analyst, Sam Reston, who is transferred to its data centre. Here, even the window panes are soundproofed. He learns that since Congress clamped down on the bulk data collection of the NSA, this new agency is working in the background to spy on everyone, by every means possible. Sam is committed to the fight against terrorism. But this place has a computer capable of breaking public key encryption on emails and storing more data than in all the books ever printed. He starts to wonder if privacy as we know it is dead. Then he is told to find Chris Bruen. Amusingly he is also warned to watch his younger colleagues in case one turns out to be another Edward Snowden.

The tension mounts as Chris and Ian are chased from one location to another, avoiding CCTV cameras because they don't know what the agency can tap into next. However I found the initial concept vague compared to a terrorist plot or industrial espionage, for instance. I had more empathy with Zoey who finds herself in a strange land with borderline psychotic hackers who are going after a drug cartel's banked cash. Rather her than me. The trail taken by the various characters shows us some contrasting scenery, and there's also an appearance by a surprising guest star.

Recently I notice technothrillers turning to the attitude that in America, and a lesser extent other countries, the permanent, employed government goes its own sneaky, arrogant way despite ephemeral, elected politicians and responsibilities. The concept certainly needs to be discussed and the solution offered in these books generally seems to be releasing leaked files into the media. Journalists and a few honest whistleblowers are shown to be the conscience, the check and balance, of the massive, impervious government. When SURVEILLANCE is everywhere, says seasoned author Reece Hirsch, the danger may be more from within than without. Read his ominous view of a situation that may already exist, for all we know, and see how safe you feel.

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