Reece Hirsch

I would like to thank Thomas & Mercer, as well as NetGalley, for a copy of this e-ARC to review. Though I received this ebook for free, that has no impact upon the honesty of my review.

Goodreads Teaser: "When former computer-crimes prosecutor Chris Bruen and retired hacktivist Zoey Doucet open their San Francisco law firm, it’s the best day of their professional lives. That is, until their first client walks through the door.

Ian Ayres is an “ethical hacker” who was hired by a company show more to test the security of its online systems. On the job, he uncovered some highly classified information: the existence of a top-secret government surveillance agency and its Skeleton Key, a program that can break any form of encryption. Now Ayres is on the run. And after government agents descend on Chris and Zoey’s office during their potential client’s visit—killing two employees—they, too, are forced to flee for their lives.

From California to Ecuador to Mexico, the trio must try to evade a hired assassin, a bloodthirsty drug cartel, and their own government. But how can they escape an adversary that can access every phone call, every email, every video feed?

'Surveillance' is critically acclaimed author Reece Hirsch’s third book in the Chris Bruen series."

Beginning with a bang, this book keeps you on the edge of your seat all the way to the end. There's no doubt that Hirsch has a true talent for creating mysterious thrillers that walk that fine line between fiction and reality. For the events in this story do just that, keeping you firmly engaged in Bruen's life or death race while at the same time planting that kernel of doubt about this story being fictional. Sure the actual story is made up, but isn't it more than possible that it's based upon real events? Starting with a mind-boggling question such as this, incorporating realistic and relatable characters, and placing them all within a world we're intimately familiar with, and Hirsch has crafted a thriller that lingers long after the last page has been turned and the book set down.

Chris Bruen, Zoey Doucet, Ian Ayers, and all the other players in this deadly game of cat and mouse have nuances and shading that make them come alive off the page. Within a few pages they all feel like they might be people you could easily know, or come into contact with during the course of your daily life. They have distinct personalities and quirks. Granted we only see those that come out under extreme duress, but even so they hint at many of the other traits each person possesses - humor, impatience, love, sneakiness, brutality, mellowness, etc. All of which combines to make them easy to relate to, or at least have strong feelings about or for. So of course that makes us root for those we consider to be the good guys, and dread encountering those we think must be the bad guys.

Setting all this in places we know, places we may have been, just brings the possibility of this as reality that much closer to home. A brilliant move, and one that makes it virtually impossible to get away from the underlying issues and ideas exposed by this book. Exceptionally well done, it has made me want to read many more works by Hirsch - as quickly as I can get my hands on them. Even if only to shake loose the ideas this book has implanted in my head! show less

San Francisco lawyer Will Connelly's day gets off to a rough start when a colleague at his high-toned law firm takes a deadly tumble (right past his window, no less) off the roof of their office building. Oddly, the colleague had tried to phone Will twice that morning and even more oddly Will's card key for entering the building was switched with the dead colleague's. Based on this highly circumstantial evidence, the San Francisco police consider Will a suspect.

While all is not doom and show more gloom for our hero (who later that day finds out he is being offered a partnership with the firm), things take a turn for the even-worse when Will decides to celebrate his new status by going to a pick-up joint for the express purpose of picking someone up. He picks up the wrong girl and ends up blundering his way in between a rock and a hard place. As an attorney who handles mergers and acquisitions, he has (in the wake of the colleague's death) just been assigned a career-making case: handling the acquisition of Jupiter Software, the world leader in encryption software. The ill-advised pick-up leads to an unhappy brush with two Russian mobster wannabes. They threaten (and inflict) physical harm and promise to do worse, unless Will plays along and gives them insider trading information.

So now Will is facing scrutiny from the San Francisco police, threats from would-be Russian mobsters, and the choice between either pissing them off royally by going to the authorities or violating law and legal ethics by complying with their wishes. Not cool. Along with various authorities with whom Will could run afoul, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Justice and the California Bar, it appears Jupiter has ties with the National Security Agency. Are we having fun yet?

THE INSIDER is, indeed, an engaging and ambitious debut novel. Author Reese Hirsch does a superb job of teasing out a complex and fast-paced plot from this initial set-up. As a practicing attorney, Hirsch also does a masterful job of informing readers about the legal niceties of handling corporate transactions without bogging them down in excess detail and jargon. As the story progresses, the stakes get raised considerably and Will is put through his paces and then some. The question that kept me turning the pages was "How the hell is he going to get out from under all this?"

To read the entire review, see: http://thebookgrrl.blogspot.com/2010/08/insider-roller-coaster-ride-and-life.htm... show less

We all want to make good, and young lawyer Will Connelly is no exception. Will wants to get ahead, and as The Insider opens he's striving to make partner in his San Francisco law firm. Will works hard. In fact, on the day that will change his life he arrives at 6:30 a.m. to get a head start on clocking those billable hours. Will's working so hard that he pointedly ignores the phone call from a co-worker that, if he had answered it, might have saved his life. Or it might not. He'll never know show more for sure, but moments later he sees this co-worker plummet past the window of his office on the thirty-eighth floor.

Later that morning Will learns he's been made partner. He also learns that Ben Fisher--he who fell to a bloody death--had not. And that evening, while celebrating alone, Will meets a beautiful Russian office worker. Even at the best of times a one-night-stand is probably not the best of ideas. With the run of luck which started when Will's key card to the firm's building was found in his dead co-worker's possession, it's not at all a good idea.

Within twenty-four hours Will has been sucked into a practically incomprehensible vortex of threats, pain, and demands that are impossible to comply with. Will's pickup, the lovely Katya, has ties to a couple of Russian wannabe mobsters. The wannabes want Will to give them some insider information about a merger he's working on, one involving Jupiter Software, a company with a revolutionary encryption program. Events pile up upon one another, faster and faster; information comes from all directions, and is often misleading or wrong.

The action in The Insider, the first legal thriller from author (and lawyer) Reece Hirsch, is nonstop. Hirsch works the fabulous San Francisco setting, racing Will--and the reader--all around the city and its environs, including a mad chase through the feathers and leather of the Gay Pride Parade on Market Street. There are more deaths, bad guys are discovered in high places, and by novel's end Will Connelly has embarked upon a different sort of life. A most impressive first novel; I look forward to more from Reece Hirsch. show less

I liked this book, very John Grishomish. I wanted Will to be a bit smarter and turn himself in, but then again I don't always know what is best. I do know to always ask for a lawyer if being questioned by the police for any reason, thank heaven so did he. Great mystery and I didn't guess the end. I love that Will took his life destiny into his own hands and didn't depend on anyone else to fight his battles. It kept my interest to the last page and was fast read.