War veteran and widower \u201cVoodoo\u201d leads a group of hackers and \u201cwrench-turners\u201d for the United States Naval Special Warfareunit at the Directorate in San Diego. His skills earned him a spot in a rescue operation the previous year in Japan; now, the CIA station chief in Japan wants the same team for a mission in Central Asia, which, like the previous op, has ties to an escalating artificial intelligence Cold War. That\u2019s not the only connection\u2014the God Algorithm, a powerful AI that Voodoo and the others learned about last year, may still be trouble. For their newest assignment, the team must first recover an asset named Kobra Siddik, who, after escaping a reeducation camp in China, rushes to make it across the border to Kazakhstan. She has intel Voodoo\u2019s team needs, but she will only supply it if the team helps her get someone else out of the camp. Do the Chinese have the God Algorithm? And for what diabolical purpose will they use the AI? In any case, soldiers (courtesy of China\u2019s Ministry of State Security) are gunning for Kobra as well as Voodoo, and such team members as the burly, taciturn Stu Slater and Voodoo\u2019s redheaded directorate co-worker Sparks. The team\u2019s ultimate goal is thwarting \u201cthis AI network\u201d that seems to be gathering force. But that\u2019s easier planned than done, as protests devolve into riots that upset the Kazakh city of Almaty, surprising villains crop up, and double-crossings throw everything into disarray. <\/p>\n
Hancock packs this brisk thriller with rousing action scenes and intriguing ideas (a scientist makes a specific type of diamond whose value isn\u2019t monetary; China uses a \u201cpredictive algorithm\u201d that warns officials of the enigmatic \u201cSentinel\u201d that will trigger insurgency). The narrative\u2019s complex concepts are made abundantly clear via the action or characters\u2019 discourse. That\u2019s also true for the military and tech terminology, in addition to a veritable alphabet soup of acronyms for various organizations and shorthand communications (RTB: Return To Base). The novel delivers action in an entertaining fashion as the team skydives, goes undercover, and finds itself engaged in frenzied gunfights and pursuits. They also employ impressive technology, the highlight being four-legged, heavily-armed robotic machines that the team can access remotely. Best of all, the author meticulously develops the cast: Voodoo shares a tension with team member Mason Gallegos that harkens back to their tour in Afghanistan, and there are memorable individuals throughout, including the resilient Kobra, who comes with a tragic backstory; the ever-inquisitive Inspector Chen Wei; and the highly-skilled CIA operative Sasha Zhakupova. This sophomore series installment seamlessly connects to the preceding book\u2014new readers will easily follow along, but may want to check out the series opener to avoid spoilers. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
War veteran and widower \u201cVoodoo\u201d leads a group of hackers and \u201cwrench-turners\u201d for the United States Naval Special Warfareunit at the Directorate in San Diego. His skills earned him a spot in a rescue operation the previous year in Japan; now, the CIA station chief in Japan wants the same team for a mission in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}