Black List by Brad Thor >> Suspense Magazine

Black List by Brad Thor >> Suspense Magazine >> September 2012

I am in control. I know everything about you. What you buy, where you travel, what foods you eat. I know every email you send or receive. I know what sites you visit on the Internet. I even know how you think. I am in control and I want more power. If I don’t like what you think, say, or do, well, your name gets put on a special list…and I kill you. Scott Harvath is a counterterrorism agent. When he is attacked in Paris by the gunmen who killed his partner, he immediately goes on the run seeking answers.

Soon, Harvath discovers he’s been labeled a traitor. In America, an information dealer named Nicholas has stumbled onto a plot by a shadowy organization in control of the government and much of America’s technology. When the two finally meet, they start to pick apart the pieces of a plan to monitor and control every human being in America, and maybe the world. Their challenge: how to find an entity who can tap into every piece of technology in existence.

This is a scary book. Thor states right up front that the technology mentioned in the story is either currently in use or in final development stages by the government and its partners. Think about it. Everything: your phone, your GPS, your car, every transaction you make can be monitored and the information collected and stored. Cameras can look at you and register your body systems. All of this is happening today. Power corrupts and those with power are going to make sure they keep it. This is a story to make you think. Other than being an action thriller, this should make you take a different look at the world around you and realize your privacy and way of living may no longer be yours to control.

Reviewed by Stephen L. Brayton, author of “Beta” for Suspense Magazine