The Ultimate Rush by
Joe Quirk
pbk out February 99
(No Exit Press)
at £6.99
There's not a courier in San Francisco who can deliver faster than rollerblader Chet Griffin. So when confidential, time-sensitive material
needs to be transmitted as fast as e-mail but with old-fashioned top security, there's only one choice. And it earns big bucks. Which would be fine by Chet, except that he finds out the hard way that he's not working for the good guys.
When security is breached and one of his fellow couriers is murdered before his very eyes, Chet finds that it's not a good idea to offend the bosses
when the bosses include the Chinese triads, the Italian Mafia and a bent cop.
His one chance is to exploit his darkside skills as the hacker from hell. But even in cyberspace, he's not safe from vengeance. It's all too much for a guy who just wants to be a cool dude who dreams of getting it on with the woman of his fantasies.
The Ultimate Rush is a page-turning dream racer of a novel. Action sequences of nail-biting tension and side-splitting humour erupt at regular intervals like giant rockets on Bonfire Night. It's hip, it's entertaining and above all, it takes the reader right inside cyberspace with enough detail to make everything clear but not so much that we're overwhelmed. A truly kickin' debut.
(
Val McDermid
- Gold Dagger winner & creator of Lindsay Gordon, Kate Brannigan & Tony Hill)
The Ultimate Rush by
Joe Quirk