The Scylla Hexagram :

Rating:
Summary: Good descriptions of global financial system
Review: Although she has become a super-spy for the global agency 'the Network,' Kym Blaze is still dealing with the night she was almost killed by the Unicorn. When her newest assignment puts her directly into confontation with the Unicorn, Kym must learn to use her fear and anger--or be destroyed. The Unicorn has developed a plot to undermine the global trading system, creating financial instability and driving a return to the Maoist/Communist rule in China. Using the tools of cyberterrorism, he intends to dump false information into the network, create false and losing trades, and send rumors of destruction through the system.

As she throws herself into her mission, Kym can never be certain who is an ally and who is an enemy. The felon/trader Obermeyer is a doubleagent in the hire of the Network, but does he really work for the Unicorn--or is he working for himself. And who is the Unicorn really--and why does he seem to be driving toward an ultimate confrontation with Kym, no matter what the cost in slain men or even damage to his plans?

Author Paul Riva does a good job describing the international financial trading system putting the complicated nature of trade in language that readers can understand. He also worked hard to show Kym as a heroine tortured by her past failure and wrestling with her role in the world. Often clunky language and insufficient character development, however, sometimes gave THE SCYLLA HEXAGRAM a comic-book feel. Still, SCYLLA makes an enjoyable read.

Rating:
Summary: Farfetched from a financial point of view...but kinda fun.
Review: As novels go, this one is short (defined as a "speednovel" in a press release for the book), but that should not dissuade one from reading it. Its plot structure is based on an interesting field, namely financial engineering, a field that has taken a lot of heat lately, thanks to several financial debacles widely reported in the press. A few of these scandals involved financial manipulations that resulted in hundreds of billions of dollars. The demise of these scams is illustrative of the difficulty in keeping financial manipulations secret. The complexity of the financial networks precludes any group of individuals from their manipulation and control. Such manipulations are eventually detected, due in part to the astuteness of investors and in highly sophisticated machines used to predict and monitor financial data from markets all over the world.

Thus the financial manipulation of Obermeyer, one of the characters in the book, and a 'star trader' who attempts to achieve global financial control in the guise of the 'Scylla hexagram,' is farfetched. The story is full of references to financial terminology, no doubt to make the less knowledgeable reader be able to follow the story. To the more sophisticated reader with a financial background though, they are somewhat of a distraction. The story would have been much more interesting (and credible) if the author had wrote it for a more restricted readership instead of trying to reach a the general reader not schooled in the details of finance. There are many methods of hiding and controlling financial data maliciously, such as using viruses and intelligent agents. Such viruses and agents are studied under the growing field of cryptovirology, and would have made a superb plot device in this story. To make use of the strategies of cryptovirology would have made the story much more interesting, and would even serve as a warning siren to the possible dangers of using these strategies maliciously for financial manipulation and control.

The book though does have some interesting characters, even though the velocity of the book suppresses their development in any great detail. Indeed, Kym Blaze keeps the reader on edge as to the cause of her nervousness and frequently timidity. Her attitude about money is interesting in the way it was described by the author, namely that "it has many flavors" in that people have different attitudes about how to earn money and live or live without it. Kym was fascinated about the laws governing the flow of money, and had a strong desire to understand these laws. Kym was also described as having a photographic memory, which made her a strong candidate for an intelligence agent. Obermeyer is an interesting character also, but he could more effectively be morphed into a network virus or intelligent agent that moves from one machine to another, leaving no traces by encrypting its presence, and fooling investors into making financial decisions based on its manipulations. Humans do not have the speed and skill to make financial decisions at the enormous scale needed for global control of the financial markets. Obermeyer as human is farfetched, but Obermeyer as a network cryptovirus would be formidable.

Rating:
Summary: really cool Book
Review: One of the kind of Suspense Books that locks you in off the word jump&you can't put it down because you don't want to Miss what is gonna happen next.the Author gets Dap from me for being so Versatile&maintaining a Pace that never slows down.highly enjoyable&top notch from start to finish.

Rating:
Summary: A refreshingly different type of espionage novel
Review: The Scylla Hexagram revolves around an interesting and more than timely premise: could financial espionage of the most extreme kind manage to bring down the world economy in one fell swoop? I'm not sure the novel answers the question of the global market's vulnerability to economic terrorism definitively, but it certainly provides much food for thought. Somewhat to my surprise, the story never fully embraces a macro-economic perspective; the seriously destabilizing effects on the world market are certainly referred to as the dastardly plan is put into motion, but the unusual and intricate details of the master plan kept my mind pretty close to the geographic area in which the story takes place: Hong Kong (and by implication China). There is also a psychological fulcrum to the novel that tends to overshadow and take a little something away from the economic terrorism aspect of the story.

As a girl in Tibet, Kym Blaze barely escaped the murderous hands of a shadowy killer known as the Unicorn. The photographic memory that serves her so well in her chosen field fails her whenever she looks back eighteen years to her encounter with the mysterious man who killed her best friend's father and very nearly killed her as well. Kym is now a Special Ops agent for the Network, a shadowy organization of "good guys." Although she does not know who the Unicorn was and is, she is assigned the mission of identifying and stopping him from destroying the world economy - his goal is to bring capitalism to its knees, move quickly to seize control of China, and return the country to her old, Maoist foundations. Kym as well as her colleagues question whether she is up to the task of confronting the Unicorn once more, but she stays the course for personal reasons, determined to conquer her increasingly troublesome personal demons.

The Network's strongest lead is a financial genius named Obermeyer working in Hong Kong. Obermeyer is a slippery little character, seemingly playing both sides of the game and leaving the reader continually questioning where his true allegiance lies. He is the Unicorn's chosen economic architect, and his character leads us through a number of exciting and economically amazing gymnastics. The manner in which the Unicorn's plan, dubbed Project Scylla (named for a six-headed monster from Greek mythology), proceeds is complex and, at times, somewhat contrived, and could probably benefit from a more complete exposition by the author, but it is a strikingly unique and memorable operation. The novel features some nice twists and turns and a surprise or two toward the end, but in my opinion part of the ultimate revelation does much to take the wind out of the sails of an otherwise compelling premise.

The Scylla Hexagram has a lot going for it, including an unusual storyline, memorable characters, and a good deal of action, but it also has a few problems. This is, however, author Paul Riva's first novel, so perhaps I am being a bit hypercritical. The main problem I had involved the style of transition from one event to the next in the story. A number of times, I was surprised and momentarily confused by a sudden change in setting or characters; transitions of this sort would sometimes happen without any real context, and this left me floundering at times. A blank line between paragraphs would have solved this problem sufficiently for me on a number of occasions, but instead I often found myself reversing my steps and trying to get my bearings as one scene suddenly changed radically without warning. I am also not sure I completely understood the motivations of the Unicorn or fully bought in to the symbiotic link he and Kym shared in terms of overcoming their own private demons.

Overall, The Scylla Hexagram is a rewarding read that does distinguish itself from the pack of modern thrillers. The fact that it revolves around an economically complex form of terrorism is both a positive and a negative. This isn't your typical type of espionage action novel (meaning this is much more than a tale of good guys going out with guns blazing to take care of stereotypical bad guys), but - that being the case - it is also a little less accessible to the general reader than your standard book of this genre. This type of intellectual thriller won't appeal to all readers, but it does offer a refreshingly different type of reading experience to those seeking more than recreational entertainment.

Rating:
Summary: A refreshingly different type of espionage novel
Review: The Scylla Hexagram revolves around an interesting and more than timely premise: could financial espionage of the most extreme kind manage to bring down the world economy in one fell swoop? I'm not sure the novel answers the question of the global market's vulnerability to economic terrorism definitively, but it certainly provides much food for thought. Somewhat to my surprise, the story never fully embraces a macro-economic perspective; the seriously destabilizing effects on the world market are certainly referred to as the dastardly plan is put into motion, but the unusual and intricate details of the master plan kept my mind pretty close to the geographic area in which the story takes place: Hong Kong (and by implication China). There is also a psychological fulcrum to the novel that tends to overshadow and take a little something away from the economic terrorism aspect of the story.

As a girl in Tibet, Kym Blaze barely escaped the murderous hands of a shadowy killer known as the Unicorn. The photographic memory that serves her so well in her chosen field fails her whenever she looks back eighteen years to her encounter with the mysterious man who killed her best friend's father and very nearly killed her as well. Kym is now a Special Ops agent for the Network, a shadowy organization of "good guys." Although she does not know who the Unicorn was and is, she is assigned the mission of identifying and stopping him from destroying the world economy - his goal is to bring capitalism to its knees, move quickly to seize control of China, and return the country to her old, Maoist foundations. Kym as well as her colleagues question whether she is up to the task of confronting the Unicorn once more, but she stays the course for personal reasons, determined to conquer her increasingly troublesome personal demons.

The Network's strongest lead is a financial genius named Obermeyer working in Hong Kong. Obermeyer is a slippery little character, seemingly playing both sides of the game and leaving the reader continually questioning where his true allegiance lies. He is the Unicorn's chosen economic architect, and his character leads us through a number of exciting and economically amazing gymnastics. The manner in which the Unicorn's plan, dubbed Project Scylla (named for a six-headed monster from Greek mythology), proceeds is complex and, at times, somewhat contrived, and could probably benefit from a more complete exposition by the author, but it is a strikingly unique and memorable operation. The novel features some nice twists and turns and a surprise or two toward the end, but in my opinion part of the ultimate revelation does much to take the wind out of the sails of an otherwise compelling premise.

The Scylla Hexagram has a lot going for it, including an unusual storyline, memorable characters, and a good deal of action, but it also has a few problems. This is, however, author Paul Riva's first novel, so perhaps I am being a bit hypercritical. The main problem I had involved the style of transition from one event to the next in the story. A number of times, I was surprised and momentarily confused by a sudden change in setting or characters; transitions of this sort would sometimes happen without any real context, and this left me floundering at times. A blank line between paragraphs would have solved this problem sufficiently for me on a number of occasions, but instead I often found myself reversing my steps and trying to get my bearings as one scene suddenly changed radically without warning. I am also not sure I completely understood the motivations of the Unicorn or fully bought in to the symbiotic link he and Kym shared in terms of overcoming their own private demons.

Overall, The Scylla Hexagram is a rewarding read that does distinguish itself from the pack of modern thrillers. The fact that it revolves around an economically complex form of terrorism is both a positive and a negative. This isn't your typical type of espionage action novel (meaning this is much more than a tale of good guys going out with guns blazing to take care of stereotypical bad guys), but - that being the case - it is also a little less accessible to the general reader than your standard book of this genre. This type of intellectual thriller won't appeal to all readers, but it does offer a refreshingly different type of reading experience to those seeking more than recreational entertainment.

Rating:
Summary: Moves fast and you wonder who the double agents are
Review: The setting of this story is Asia, specifically Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China. Kym Blaze is an agent of an organization called The Network and she is hunting a master criminal known as the Unicorn. As a child, she was a witness to a murder committed by the Unicorn and barely escaped being killed as a consequence. The Unicorn has resurfaced, and his master plan is to return the P. R. C. to a social, economic and political system based on Maoist principles. To accomplish this, the Unicorn has recruited a master trader, who has come up with a plan to manipulate the international financial markets so that they will crash. The ensuing chaos will give the Unicorn the opportunity to restore the P. R. C. to what he considers the ideal.
The book moves fast, there is intrigue, deception, many double agents and several battles. I enjoyed the book, although the psychological angle regarding Kym's flashbacks to when the Unicorn tried to kill her are overdone. Special-ops agents are trained to pursue the mission first, setting all personal feelings aside.
I also had a hard time accepting the premise of returning the P. R. C. to the days of collectivist communism. I have been there and have seen the dynamic economic nature of the country. The idea that it could be returned to such a condition requires too much suspension of disbelief, even for a work of fiction. What makes a good action/adventure thriller is that the major premise must be within the bounds of believability. While such an event would have been possible in the late seventies, there is no way it could occur in the twenty-first century. The bounds of believability were stretched too far for me.
These criticisms aside, the action moved fast enough to keep my interest and I recommend you take a look at it if you are interested in action/adventure stories based on secret agents and financial manipulation.

Rating:
Summary: Moving from the start to the end.
Review: You know what makes for great reading? A book that captures you from beginning to end and this book had me captured from the start and 4 hours later I was a part of the story. The author has you moving from the start with the rafting trip to the very end.

The plot has an agent looking for the killer, and while this may not seem new, wait till you get going and the thrills and suspense will keep you wanting more and more. I found the style of writing to be very easy to pick up, and I am not a fiction reader by nature but this book was something special.

There is always something about global espionage, sexy women, power and thrill packed adventure that make this book one of the very best I have read this year. I think with a little work this could be a full length feature movie or possibly something for TV.

The main character is a woman and the author calls this books "An alternative to Lara Croft" and with a name like Kim Blaze, how can you go wrong. If you like fast paced, action packed suspenseful thrillers than take some time to get to know, what should become a household name very soon, Kim Blaze.