The Devil's Code

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Summary: Devil's code is a page turner !
Review: I found this book to have enough techo-stuff to keep me interested with a plot and mystery that kept me reading fast. I have read many books like this type and this one ranks us there.

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Summary: Part of a great and very satisfying series
Review: I am not as fond of the Kidd novels as I am of the Prey series. The Prey series is essentially told from the standpoint of the police and the effort to get bad people before they do more bad things. I found it such a satisfying series that I read all 12 of the Prey novels between Thanksgiving and February but only reviewed one of them out of respect for the reader's patience with my fixations. The Kidd novels occur in a gray world of criminality with good intentions. The cause is often noble but the characters are clearly outside society.

This novel, however, captures the challenges of an Internet based society and the potential for various elements to use the technology and undermine the system. Much of America's software is now written overseas (especially in India). Much of it could contain hidden material that would allow the original developer (or the person who paid or blackmailed them) to use and access data without anyone else knowing it. There are interests including states who would pay very large sums for information gathered by American spy satellites. The American intelligence agencies are losing a good bit of their edge as the knowledge base of the private sector (including hackers and outlaws) rises at a rapid rate.

I cannot help but like a novelist with the courage to write the following: "I got to know quite a few politicians. They were a pretty lively bunch, no more or less corrupt than schoolteachers, newspaper reporters, cops, or doctors. Anyway, it didn't take much exposure to politics for me to realize that there are as many nuts on the left as there are on the right, and in the long run, the lefties are probably more dangerous." Anyone with the courage to be that politically incorrect has my attention.

If you want to reflect on the American underground of people who function outside the law, the potential challenges of internet based crime and espionage and the potential of some systems creating real threats to our society this is a pretty good read.

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Summary: The only Sandford book I didn't like
Review: I have tried several times to get through this book and finally decided to simply stop trying. I cannot explain what is so different about this book from his other novels. It seems to move too slow and the plot is simply dull. There isn't enough depth to the characters. It started off with a spark and quickly fizzled. I am sure this one was just a fluke.

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Summary: the devil's code-johnsandford
Review: Nobody bats a thousand! Having read all of Mr. Sandford's previous works, and fully enjoying each, I awaited eagerly publication of his latest, The Devil's Code. Alas, I found it to be a major disappointment. I got through about 200 pages (re- reading at least half that number in an effort to glean some clues about the plot line)before giving up on it. I have no idea what this book is about or why Mr.S. chose to load it up with so much computer esoterica....

It is not my purpose to demean the author who, I know, can write up a storm when he's on. Having gotten this rare mistake out of his system, it is my hope (and belief) that his next novel will show a return to his normally excellent form.

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Summary: HIGH TECH INTERNET ROMP!
Review: First off, you can't compare Kidd and Davenport(Prey series), they are different. Davenport is a cop, Kidd is a crook who cares.

In this novel Kidd and his sometime lover LuEllen get caight up in a tangled web that involves government officials and greedy corporate officials. St. John Corbiel is intent on making his millions and then skipping the scene. Nothing is going to get in his way. His answer to everything is get rid of the problem. He decides that his computer programmer Jack Morrison knows too much and has him exterminated. This is what brings Kidd into the picture.

This is an exciting suspense thriller by a master of the genre. Kidd and LuEllen make a great team. You are sure to enjoy this one.

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Summary: My first Sandford book
Review: I haven't read the Prey series yet, so coming from that perspective, I feel the book had a great plot line and while I agree with another reviewer that the characters are less than perfectly fleshed out, it wasn't necessary given the novel as a whole. I thoroughly enjoyed the detailed technology behind each "job", which I'm sure is a personal preference.

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Summary: Not a keeper!
Review: This may be the one John Sandford novel I do not keep. Couldn't wait to be finished. It failed to keep my interest, perhaps because I'm technologically deficient, but it was so convoluted that I was never sure where it was going. Give me Lucas Davenport any day.

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Summary: Hackers Not Kidding Around
Review: After several excellent novels about Minneapolis police detective Lucas Davenport, John Sandford returns to his original character, Kidd. Kidd is very different from Lucas, although there are some similarities. One major difference is that Kidd is a crook. He steals technology and business secrets. He does this mostly for fun, but it does supplement his income as a painter. Returning from a Canadian fishing trip, Kidd is met at the airport by the sister of Jack Morrison, one of his hacker (and criminal) friends. Jack is dead, killed in a shootout with security guards at the high-tech business where he was a consultant. It appears that he had sneaked into the office to pirate some files and started shooting when a patrolling guard came by. Lane Ward, Jack's sister, doesn't buy it. Jack hated guns and would certainly not be carrying one, much less start shooting. Since he had told her that if anything ever happened to him she should call Kidd, here she is. Kidd isn't all that interested, until he discovers that she knows all about his nefarious side-Jack told Lane about his capers with Kidd. Kidd agrees to go along and at least look into the situation. Now the reader already knows that Jack was murdered and the shootout with the security guard was a setup. Sandford told us that in the first chapter. But Jack was the second murder in that chapter. The first was an official with the National Security Agency who was shot down on the street near Washington. Kidd and Lane start to investigate and are almost killed by accident when the bad guys burn down Jack's house with them in it. In a series of both physical and computer-driven investigations Kidd and Lane begin to uncover the plot. Kidd brings in LuEllen, his cohort from the previous novels. LuEllen is a real thief, not a computer hacker. She does second story work with precision and vigor. With LuEllen's help and his network of hacker buddies Kidd solves the mystery, makes a little money on the side, and straightens out the National Security Agency. The bad guys all get what's coming to them. There is a little collateral damage to some of the characters along the way. Kidd is not the kind of character to build a successful series on. Sandford was wise to drop him and create Lucas Davenport and the "Prey" novels. Returning to Kidd gives Sandford a break from developing Lucas plots, and perhaps Lucas will return with new vigor. There is just too much reliance on hacker buddies providing all the answers as soon as Kidd dreams up a question-Sanford's version of deus ex machina. The story is well crafted and an entertaining read.

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Summary: I could say I liked it but I'd be kidding.
Review: I enjoy Sandford's prey books but have never read one of his Kidd novels. This is the first, and will be the last. The characters are so thinly developed that I could care for none of them...and so why invest time , energy and money into the book? Sandford could learn a few things from Michael Crichton in terms of building a storyline around a lot of technical information in such a way as to draw the reader in. This book misses it for me on all levels. I finished it because I kept waiting for the book to become a "Sandford book" so to speak...and it never did.

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Summary: Big Brother is (probably) Watching
Review: Kidd, the hero of Devil's Code is a likable computer hacker/criminal and a fairly good artist. He must be a good artist because he does not have another source of income. The plot involving two seemingly unrelated murders is interesting enough. St. John Corbiel as head of a company called AmMath has come up with a software program that will intercept intelligence satalites, and he is selling photos and information to foriegn buyers. The two murder victims got to close to what he was doing and Corbiel's people killed them. The sister of Jack Morrison, one of the victims looks to Kidd to find out why her brother was murdered.

There is not a great deal of mystery throughout the book. The plot is fairly simple, the characters are predictable, and the ending is not really a surprise. Kidd is interesting enough to carry the reader through to the end of the book, but not enough to make me log on to find the other Kidd books. I like Lucas Davenport better and hope there will be another "Prey" book soon.