Bounty

May 2, 2016
Byrnes (The Genesis Plague) fuses science fiction and espionage in this smart, near-future dystopic thriller. When a website begins putting lucrative bounties on the heads of global criminals who have evaded justice—including Wall Street power brokers, politicians, and unethical businesspeople—a group of elite U.S. government operatives, led by FBI special agent Roman Novak, seeks to shut down the site. But its creators remain elusive as the body count rises and many people start to embrace the site’s simple credo (“If the law should fail, let justice prevail”). Novak and the government’s most talented cryptanalysts struggle to find a way to access and bring down the site before it irrevocably changes the world. The overall character development is superficial, but the action-packed story line is full of plot twists and explores such topical matters as cyberterrorism and hacktivism. Byrnes raises some serious questions about humankind’s increasing dependence on—and assimilation with—the digital world. Agent: Doug Grad, Doug Grad Literary Agency.