Red Team Blues

In recent years I've been wary of reading Cory Doctorow's novels, as his young male protagonists get on my nerves. I enjoy the technological themes he explores, though, and was convinced to read [b:Red Team Blues|60784417|Red Team Blues (Martin Hench)|Cory Doctorow|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1681104878l/60784417._SY75_.jpg|95090910] by his description of it at a scifi book festival event. It really helped that the male protagonist is older this time, indeed retired. Marty Hench is a forensic accountant who has done well from the rise of Silicon Valley. He gets pulled in for One Last Job (classic trope for a reason) by an old friend who also happens to be a billionaire. I definitely preferred show more Marty to Doctorow's younger protagonist novels, although it was a bit irritating that all the hot ladies wanted to sleep with him.

What made [b:Red Team Blues|60784417|Red Team Blues (Martin Hench)|Cory Doctorow|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1681104878l/60784417._SY75_.jpg|95090910] well worth reading, though, was the involving plot, solid examination of cryptocurrency, and, above all, thoughtful consideration of the morality of wealth. This is not a theme that fiction ostensibly about technology tends to deal with. I appreciated how Doctorow showed extremes of wealth and poverty from Marty's perspective. These include his billionaire pal (who is briefly and astoundingly stingy about paying him), people whose job is to protect the ultra-wealthy from being taxed, and street sleepers of San Francisco. A conventional thriller plot would have ended once One Last Job finishes and I found it much more interesting that Doctorow works through the lasting ramifications, for Marty and others.

This final job earns Marty $250 million and he doesn't know how to spend it, which begs the questions: what is the point of extreme wealth? Once you've bought pricy food and booze, a night at a fancy hotel, and a couple of shiny presents, what more can you possibly want? When terrible poverty and suffering are all around, how can you justify hoarding money for no purpose? I found Marty most interesting when he was wrestling with these questions. You certainly can't buy immortality, as the billionaire pal's sudden death aptly illustrates. I think I still prefer Cory Doctorow's nonfiction writing on pluralistic.net, but this was a fun novel with interesting things to say about wealth inequality under the surveillance capitalism. show less

I had a lot of fun with this, mostly because, in addition to being a well-written techno-thriller with a complex plot and great action scenes, the protagonist is about my age and shares many of my opinions/prejudices about Silicon Valley and the Techbros and Venture Capitalists who infest it.

The plot was grounded in an insider's understanding of blockchain technology, cryptocurrency, and the insanity of the Palo Alto venture capital shark pool, seasoned with the sadistic violence that the drug traffickers who are the major beneficiaries of cryptocurrency mete out to people who cross them.

Using larger-than-life but easy to believe in Tech billionaires and vicious international criminals to explore the darker uses of cryptocurrency, show more supported by the almost religious zeal of those who believe that any technology that makes money is good technology, regardless of what it does to the world, made this an engaging thriller.

For me, it was refreshing to read a book where the main character, a tech veteran of many decades, won't buy a Tesla because he doesn't like Musk and applauds someone who, after their company was bought by Oracle, resigned five minutes into their first face-to-face with Larry Ellison. I enjoyed having a protagonist of about my own age who shared not just my tech prejudices but my views on the obscenity inherent in the concept of anyone hoarding enough wealth to be a multi-billionaire.

Most of the story was tense and exciting, as well as insightful and well-informed. There was, perhaps, just a little too much wish fulfillment towards the end. Still, I felt our hero deserved a little luck because I liked the way he thought.

I'll be reading more Cory Doctrow soon. show less

Cryptocurrency and economics and money laundering and digital security are all subjects that make my head spin and they are all here in this latest book from Cory Doctorow. So, maybe if I understood these concepts better, I would have given this book a higher rating. It's nice that Doctorow didn't dumb down the material to pander to the likes of me because I feel I should know more about them. But maybe a primer at the back wouldn't have gone amiss.

Martin (Marty) Hench has worked as a forensic accountant and tech expert for years. He plays on the Red Team, which means he works for the offensive i.e. he just has to find one hole in a system's security. (The Blue Team, obviously, is the defensive side and they are tasked with making the show more perfect security system.) An old friend calls him in to help with a big problem. Since I don't pretend to understand the mechanics of the problem let's just say that something was stolen from him that is worth billions and, if it gets into the wrong hands, could lead to a global meltdown of the banking, computer and government systems. Hench agrees to go looking and with a fair degree of effort he manages to find it. But, in doing so, he brings himself to the attention of international crime syndicates who want to kill Hench in a slow and agonizing way. The Department of Homeland Security then steps in to protect Hench but something goes awry and he is left to go undercover all on his own. He has money, thanks to the job he just did, which makes the disappearing act a tad easier. He also seems to have an ability to make friends quickly (helped by a generous supply of bourbon). Can he last on his own resources until the warring factions kill each other off? And, if he does, what is he going to do with all that money he now has at his disposal? Life was much simpler when he was just driving around in his touring bus, parking in Walmarts and campgrounds, and using his electric vehicle when he needed to be more nimble while meeting friends for good meals and drinks.

This was a fast-moving tale and, despite not really understanding the issues, it was a quick read for me. show less

Doctorow, Cory. Red Team Blues. E-book ed., Tor, 2023. Martin Hench 1.
Martin Hench, the hero of Cory Doctorow’s Red Team Blues, is a 67-year-old forensic accountant who has been in the business, he says, since crypto meant cryptography. He hacks into the computer systems of those who have defrauded his clients and recovers the stolen money for a cut of the take. He thinks he has funded his retirement when he recovers hundreds of millions for an old friend. But the crooks want revenge. At its heart, Red Team Blues is a noir detective story set in San Francisco (where else?). Hench is a sleuth with a laptop and a deep knowledge of the vulnerabilities inherent in electronic data. Doctorow is a sharp critic of our techno-corporate state show more and is the heir apparent to William Gibson in the near-future tech thriller. He somehow avoids infodumps and still tells us all we need to know about the arcane world in which his characters operate. The second volume of a Hench trilogy is due out in February. I can’t wait—four strong stars for RTB. show less

I received a free copy from Tor books in exchange for my honest review.

Marty Hench is past retirement age (for those of us in the U.S. who can hope to retire, anyway) and cruises around Cali in his RV - not the protagonist I'd expect in a hacker/light espionage novel, but one I found surprisingly charming and relatable. Marty still takes on odd jobs as a forensic accountant and the recent job he accepts is a lot more dangerous than usual. I'm already a fan of Doctorow's work, so maybe I'm biased. But I found this fun, witty, and exciting. It's short - good if you need a quick read, but also pretty accessible for readers who, like me, aren't really familiar with Marty's line of work. There was also some light romance, which I was show more pleasantly surprised to find - older protags deserve some smoochin too! I would definitely read several more in the Marty Hench series and it's looking like another book is due to come out early 2024, so I'll be keeping my eyes out. show less

This was truly fun, I wavered between a 4 and a 5 but at the end of the audiobook came this message:

This book is sold without digital rights management, a form of bullshit encryption that purports to prevent unauthorized copying but really just locks readers, writers and publishers to large monopolistic platforms (*cough* Audible *cough*.) Thank you for supporting a pluralistic future where you own the books you buy.

And a 5-star it is! (There is also a lovely paean to fair use.) I started grownup life as an IP lawyer, and that IP lawyer that still lives in me is singing. Doctrow is a little more "information wants to be free" than I am, but I celebrate his decision to live his values and I certainly support the credo that creators show more should own their shit until they willingly sell their shit.

Now that the PSA has ended I will say that this book is loads of fun. I have a hard time with tech crime thrillers because most of the writers of said books know nothing about law or tech. I know a lot about one of those things, and a little about the other and that is enough to make most of the genre unreadable for me. Doctorow knows more than I about one of those things, and may also know more about the other and I am putty in his hands. (He also knows tech bros and is great at poking fun. I laughed a lot reading this.)

Martin Hench, our hero, is an attractive, commitment-resistant 60-something forensic accountant who lives on a former tour bus, a Nissan Leaf he bought used. I love the unsexiness of that! But he is a genius forensic accountant and knows how to trace assets like no one else. Though technically retired, when an old friend of his, now a tech billionaire, has a cryptokey stolen Martin steps up (for a quarter billion dollar payday.) That cryptokey is not only worth a billion dollars but also if deciphered would provide bad people with money and information that would destabilize or destroy many businesses. I won't tell more of the story than that, but will say that Martin is a gifted and principled professional who also pulls a lot of very hot and very smart women (who are more or less age-appropriate insofar as they are all into the double digits on their college reunions.) When he does the knight in shining armor thing he doesn't do it because women are weak and need his protection, he does it because many men are assholes who screw over capable and decent women and he has the power to find the assets they hide with his big swinging accounting skills.

I did have two issues with the book. The first is that Doctrow wears his politics on his sleeve here. I don't for the most part have an issue with that, but a little more subtlety would be awesome. I appreciate that he is the anti-Ayn-Rand, but he doesn't have to emulate her writing style to be that. The second issue was that there is a group of bad guys from various former-Soviet bloc nations and their role and their actions are not well set out. I think I know what they did, but I am not 100% sure I followed. That plotline could have used some massaging.

Overall, a really fun ride that embraces decency and accountability and focused human (and humane) connection with all from cryptogeeks to Uber drivers to unhoused addicts to undocumented restaurant employees. Action and adventure with a humanist worldview is rare and beautiful. show less

A forensic accountant in his 60s does one last big job for a tech billionaire, retrieving a stolen laptop, and his percentage fee is hundreds of millions of dollars. But the bad guys want revenge, so it’s not all Pappy and smiles (on the other hand, he sleeps with more than one attractive woman during his adventures, although at least they aren’t twentysomethings). Benign geek power fantasy, I guess.