2 member(s) found this review helpful.
Very good book, but not recommended reading for the paranoid or conspiracy theorist. It made me want to start paying cash for everything. Jeffrey Deaver displayed his usual excellence, with lots of twists and turns. The only problem is that I have to wait a year for the next one!
2 member(s) found this review helpful.
I usually enjoy the Lincoln Rhyme series and this installment was no exception however, having been the victim of (a fairly mild case of) identity theft this one really hit home. If you've been educated at all in the basics of identity theft you'll see the truth behind the basic premise and if you have a working knowledge (even a rudimentary one) of data mining it'll scare the crap out of you.
I saw that another review mentioned data mining off of the internet but Deaver really presents the information well and makes a point of showing that it is most certainly *not* an internet exclusive danger and, in fact, that our personal information is every bit as vulnerable offline.
So bottom line for this book: you get a quick and dirty education on privacy issues and vulnerabilities in our time presented in an entertaining and engrossing story format (no dry lectures here) with somewhat of a surprise ending- I'm pretty good at figuring out who the bad guy is but I never figured this one out until he told us when, of course, I immediately kicked myself for not putting it together. Very well done and I'm looking forward to the next book.
2 member(s) found this review helpful.
Deaver does his homework. In The Broken Window, he tells enough about data mining - the collection of intimate details about individuals' lives by big corporations, who then pass this information on to advertisers, politicians ... and sometimes criminals - to make a normal person paranoid! An original plot that will make you think next time you commit personal data to paper or computer. A good read!