The Hanged Man's Song

Synopsis: Kidd's contact, Bobby, has disappeared off of the web. Kidd and John go to check on him and find he has been murdered, and worse, that his laptop has been stolen. With LuEllen, Kidd and John have to get the laptop back and track down Bobby's killer before he releases the information on the computer putting them all in danger.
Review: This was a really good book in that the story was convoluted without being so overly complicated as to ruin the plot. Characters are well written and interesting. This makes me want to go back and read the other Kidd novels.

This novel is part of a series by John Sanford featuring Kidd, a legitimate painter and not so legitimate computer hacker. This is the fourth in the series, but the first I have read. It stand alone quite well although it contains an occasional reference to events that probably took place in earlier books in the series.

In this book, an extremely competent hacker with the avatar Bobby is murdered in the first chapter. Although Kidd has never met Bobby, they are allies of a sort among hackers. Bobby’s murder spells trouble for Kidd because Bobby has a great deal of dangerous information about a lot of people, which may include Kidd himself. Kidd and his sometime lover LuEllen go searching for Bobby’s incriminatory laptop with a show more secondary motive of bringing retribution to Bobby’s killer. Sanford shares some interesting techniques of computer hackers, but the search for the laptop and the killer is somewhat humdrum as thrillers go.

(JAB) show less

The death of a superhacker Kidd considered a friend (albeit and unmet-in-person one) sends ripples through the online elite and sends Kidd and LuEllen on a dangerous search for a vicious killer. And of course they have no choice but to mess with a few government agencies and the odd politician along the way.

The technology may get a bit dated, but the story and the characters don't.

It’s been ages since I read a Kidd novel and I don’t remember them very much. But I do remember that Kidd is a criminal hacker/non-criminal painter and his sidekick is a professional thief named LuEllen. At least that’s the name she goes by and the only one Kidd knows. The action is swift, but disjointed - we get a lot of interruptions and downtime, which I suppose is more 'realistic', but can makes the flow choppy.

Kidd and LuEllen are back agian and this time it's personal. Someone killed Bobby, and Kidd finds himself trying to find the killer before he ruins most of the hackers in the US, includeing Kidd himself. Bobby knew things about a lot of people and many knew he knew. Some were worried where he kept his info. The murderer is a nut who starts using the info on Bobby's laptop to cause some major political upheavals, Kidd and company are afaid they may be the next 'big story'. Find him before he finds the wrong dirt.

Excellent alternative to flavor-of-the-month "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". Anyone interested in computer espionage and hacking will find Sandford's plot and writing more plausible and enjoyable than Larsson's.

John Sandford is primarily known for two series of books. The [INSERT WORD HERE] PREY series features Lucas Davenport and his ensemble of colleagues from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. The second series (with inconsistent titles which make it less clear that they constitute a series) features Virgil Davenport (often referred to as "that f*ckin' Flowers) features a BCA investigator who mainly works on his own, though he coordinates his investigations with Davenport and calls in help when he thinks he needs it.
But there's a third series that's less well known. It features Kidd, a successful artist with a deep background in computer hacking.
This was a new Kidd novel for me, though it came out 11 years ago. It's well worth show more reading. The characters, action, and suspense are every bit as well developed as they are in the Davenport and the Flowers books. show less