Roses & Thorns

Roses & Thorns

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

The God’s Eye View by Barry Eisler



Blurb:

Knowledge is power…and they know everything.

NSA director Theodore Anders has a simple goal: collect every phone call, email, and keystroke tapped on the Internet. He knows unlimited surveillance is the only way to keep America safe.

Evelyn Gallagher doesn’t care much about any of that. She just wants to keep her head down and manage the NSA’s camera network and facial recognition program so she can afford private school for her deaf son, Dash.

But when Evelyn discovers the existence of an NSA program code-named God’s Eye, and connects it with the mysterious deaths of a string of journalists and whistle-blowers, her doubts put her and Dash in the crosshairs of a pair of government assassins: Delgado, a sadistic bomb maker and hacker; and Manus, a damaged giant of a man who until now has cared for nothing beyond protecting the director.

Within an elaborate game of political blackmail, terrorist provocations, and White House scheming, a global war is being fought—a war between those desperate to keep the state’s darkest secrets and those intent on revealing them. A war that Evelyn will need all her espionage training and savvy to survive. A war in which the director has the ultimate informational advantage: The God’s Eye View.

About the Author:

I've been blessed with a variety of interesting jobs: a covert position with the CIA's Directorate of Operations (now called the National Clandestine Service); attorney in an international law firm; in-house counsel at the Osaka headquarters of Panasonic; executive in a Silicon Valley technology startup.

But the best job by far has been novel writing—political thrillers, as it happens—with a lot of realistic action, exotic locations, and steamy sex. My agency training, my time as a lawyer, my experiences in Japan, and a background in martial arts all inform my writing. I get a lot of my material from actual US government craziness (assassinations, torture, indefinite imprisonment, bulk surveillance...you know, everything needed these days to Keep Us Safe). As I like to say, what's bad for America is good for thriller writers.

A lot of what I've speculated about turns out to be true: the kill list, or "International Terrorist Threat Matrix," I introduced in 2004 in Winner Take All, for example, came to light in 2012 and 2013 as the "Disposition Matrix," courtesy of the Obama administration. The safety shortcomings of Japanese nuclear reactors I described in 2003 in A Lonely Resurrection were documented following the 2011 Fukushima catastrophe. And the pacemaker hack that kicked off my first book—A Clean Kill in Tokyo, in 2002—turns out to have been a real concern of Dick Cheney's, as revealed in his memoirs (it also turned up in the second season of Homeland).

The books have won a bunch of awards and made various "Best of" lists, which is nice. My first book—A Clean Kill in Tokyo, which introduced "natural causes" assassin John Rain--was made into a Japanese language movie called Rain Fall a few years back. The whole Rain series is now being developed for television by Cinemax, with Keanu Reeves starring. Hope to have some updates on that reasonably soon.

If you want to follow what I'm up to beyond the books, Twitter's a good bet--@barryeisler. And then there's Facebook; the mailing list you can find on my website; and my blog, The Heart of the Matter.

Review by Rochelle:

The God’s Eye View was another page-burner that kept me from my “real work.” I just thank the Goddess it wasn’t the week I had to do the Marketing for Romance Writers Newsletter. February is short enough as it is. It also kept me awake. I’m a night person to begin with, and page-burners don’t help. Thanks for a few sleepless nights, Mr. Eisler. I enjoyed every minute of them!

Evelyn would have been just fine if she mentioned to Director Anders that it was such a coincidence certain people happened to die when they did. Unfortunately, she poked a pile of fur without quite realizing it was a bear. Prior to that, her biggest worry had been keeping her nice, secure job. Now she had to worry about keeping her life.

With deeply-drawn characters and a fast-paced plot, make sure you have plenty of time before you pick up The God’s Eye View. Don’t read it when you have to be anywhere or get up early, and be sure you line up enough food for the duration. You won’t be able to put it down. Oh, hi NSA. Have a nice day, guys.

Heat Rating:  R (Sex & Violence
Length:  417 Pages
Prices:
Print:
Hardcover:  $14.95
Paperback:  $10.86
Digital:  $5.99
MP3 CD:  $9.99

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