The History Book

June 11, 2007
Set in the surveillance society of the near future, this whirlwind thriller from BBC correspondent Hawksley (The Third War
) puts Kat Polinski, a convicted computer hacker just sprung from jail, to work for a division of Homeland Security. Kat's job is to break into foreign embassies and ransack their computers, searching for secret data useful to the U.S. When Kat infiltrates the Kazakhstan embassy, she finds a bunch of dead people and has to shoot her way out, killing two gunmen in the process. She then learns that her sister, Suzy, who's been living in England, has been murdered. On the lam from her own government, Kat hightails it to London, the most security-intense city in the world, to search for Suzy's killer. Hawksley lingers a little too often over security tech toys, but eventually breaks out the weaponry as Kat slings lead while making one hairsbreadth escape after another.

August 1, 2007
Shortly after a break-in at a foreign embassy in Washington turns into a bloodbath, Kat Polinski, a covert U.S. agent, receives a cryptic message from her sister in London; a day later the sister is murdered. After arriving in England, Kat learns that her sister was involved with Project Peace, a multinational organization advocating that all the worlds oil reserves be shared. Working as avideo editor for the groups news bureau, shedisseminated altered images of terrorist attacks aimed at discrediting the opposition. But she also kept a History Book of real images. Was this book what led to her assassination? Hawksley, a foreign correspondent for the BBC, understands the backroom nature of international power and the nagging issue of ordinary folk who just dont recognize whats good for them. He combines an all-too-believable, distinctly Orwellianpremise with a kick-ass heroine not about to accept an anti-utopian future. An impressive espionage debut.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)