The Broken Window

Nur noch bar bezahlen...
Nachdem die 450-Minuten-Lesung dieses Buches vorüber war, überlegte ich mir ernsthaft, ob ich meine Kunden- und Kreditkarten sowie mein Handy abschaffen soll, vom Navi ganz zu schweigen. Denn das Szenario, das Jeffrey Deaver in seinem achten Fall für Lincoln Rhyme und Amelia Sachs entwirft, wirkt so nah an der Realität, dass man sich zwangsläufig fragt, wieviel davon schon Realität IST.
Durch Zufall kommt Lincoln Rhyme mit seinem Team einem Serienkiller auf die Spur, der eine offenbar perfekte Methode entdeckt hat, die Verantwortung für seine Bluttaten anderen Menschen in die Schuhe zu schieben. Unter Zuhilfenahme eines immensen Datenpools manipuliert er das Leben Anderer auf derart perfide Art und Weise, show more dass diese am Ende ihrer vollständigen Identität beraubt sind oder wegen Verbrechen verurteilt werden, die sie nicht begangen haben. Als er feststellt, dass man ihm immer näher kommt, beginnt er seine Täuschungen auch auf Rhyme und sein Team auszudehnen...
Willkommen zurück, 1984! Bei George Orwell sah die Zukunft zwar etwas anders aus, aber letzten Endes kam sie zum gleichen Ergebnis: vollständige Überwachung. Deaver zeigt in seinem Thriller mustergültig auf, was geschehen kann, wenn all die Informationen, die jede/r von uns tagtäglich mehr oder weniger unbewusst versendet, zentral gespeichert und ausgewertet werden. Neben dieser beklemmend wirkenden Fiktion, die durchaus ausreichend genug gewesen wäre für eine spannende Story, wartet Jeffrey Deaver noch mit einem Psychothriller in gewohnt dramatisch-spannender Art auf, der auf kongeniale Weise von Dietmar Wunder (Synchronsprecher von u.a. Daniel Craig, Robert Downey Jr.) vorgetragen wird.
Weshalb dann nicht die volle Punktzahl? Ein paar kleine Unplausibilitäten störten mich doch: Weshalb kann ein Mann, der seit längerem auf der Strasse lebt (und auch so aussieht), sich völlig unverdächtig als Nachbar ausgeben? Oder die finale Rettungsaktion - vielleicht doch etwas zu viel des Guten.
Aber ansonsten: hörens- und sicherlich auch lesenswert! Und das mit den Kunden- und Kreditkarten werde ich wirklich noch einmal überdenken. show less

This may just be Jeffery Deaver’s most frightening work to date.

Readers who are familiar with Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme mysteries know that the novels are chock-full of clever psychopaths – stone killers without a trace of empathy for their victims or guilt over their crimes; brilliant killing machines performing a danse macabre with the brilliant criminologist. There are always red herrings galore, a plot with more twists than a basket of cobras, and oh-just-one-more-thing endings, generally leaving a loophole for a future adventure.

'The Broken Window' has all of these, but that’s not what makes it so scary. The thing that will keep you awake at night (or should do so) is that it’s terrifyingly real.

The plot involves a series show more of crimes, each one with a suspect arrested or convicted, and all claiming innocence. When one of the suspects turns out to be Lincoln Rhyme’s cousin Arthur, the criminologist and his team start an investigation aimed at clearing Arthur’s name. It rapidly becomes apparent that someone has hacked into (or is otherwise mis-using) information stored by a data-mining company, and the rest of the novel involves their search to identify and capture The Bad Guy. Data mining, at its simplest, gives us the computer algorithms that will note you spent 10 minutes on the Zappo’s site last night, looking at cute boots, and subsequently flashing shoe advertisements up on every sponsored site you visit for the next six months. Algorithms used by The Big Boys in the industry compare to those used by social media sites like the Ebola virus compares to a case of the sniffles. And that’s what makes this book so damned scary.

Virtually every human being on earth has now been (or shortly will be) reduced to a stack of zeroes and ones in a computer file somewhere. And control (and manipulation) of that data puts every subject at risk. You will probably never meet a homicidal psychopath face to face. But your entire life – where you were born, where you live, where you’ve worked, how you manage your finances, what your health issues are – all reside in a computer somewhere. And if someone with access to that data, and the ability to change it, gets pissed off at you, you might as well slit your own throat and get it over with.

Imagine, for a moment, that the electric company’s computers show you haven’t paid your bill in three months. The IRS computers say you haven’t filed an income tax return since 1989. You’re three years behind on your property tax payments, you’re in this country illegally, you’ve been downloading kiddy porn on your work computer, and you regularly launder large sums of money for the local crack dealer. Only none of those things are true. But the computer says they are. Ergo, various guys with badges keep showing up at your door.

Could one vindictive person do all that? Maybe; maybe not. But if you’ve ever locked horns with a computer over a single simple issue, you know how frustrating and time-consuming it can be to get it straightened out. Deaver trots out a nightmare scenario here that will stay with you long after you’ve closed the book. show less

The Broken Window is the eighth of Jeffrey Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme series. The tale begins with a plea from Judy Rhyme to help her husband, Arthur Rhyme, Lincoln’s estranged cousin, who has been arrested on a murder charge. Flawless evidence against him leads Rhyme and Sachs to suspect a set-up, and the discovery of previous similar frame-ups. Investigation directs them to Strategic Systems Datacorp, a data-mining company with incredible reach and power. In this novel, Deaver neatly demonstrates just how reliant individuals and corporations are on data and what can happen when the security of those holding the data is breached. The potential for good, in the form of crime fighting and education, and real possibility of harm, in the show more form of identity theft and terrorism, are made very clear. A very topical subject that will have everyone checking their passwords and online accounts. And plenty of twists and turns, the Deaver trademark, before the villain is finally identified. We are also treated to a bit of Lincoln’s history, and Ron Pulaski’s character fills out. Looking forward to the next Rhyme instalment. show less

A good Lincoln Rhyme thriller once again. And also one that really sent the shivers down my spine from time to time. Not because it was very gruesome, but more because I realized that it may be a book of fiction, but there actually companies out there that make money out of the data they gather on people.

Something to give a bit more thought.

Apart from that, I enjoyed this book lots :-)

Like the Bertie Bott’s Any-Flavour Beans beloved of Harry Potter, this quartet of thrillers is full of surprises and it’s only when you have tasted one, as it were, that you know if you have chosen a rosebud or an earwax flavour.
Last we have Jeffery Deaver’s latest in the Lincoln Rhyme series, Broken Window, and my final analogy: this story is the essence of sushi, with plenty of ginger, wasabi and soya sauce.
Following on from the less than brilliant ‘Cold Moon’, the psychotic assassin The Watchmaker is still very much in the picture, but the unpleasant quadriplegic Rhyme is distracted from the case by trying to prove his estranged cousin innocent of murder.
A Big Brother caveat, the book spins a realistic yarn of how, using show more data mining, identity thieves can manipulate the facts of your life and know your every move. Plausible and thought provoking, Broken Window is a return to form by Deaver.
A mixed bag, but with something for everything – even coprophiliacs – thrill seekers need look no further for things on which to spend their hard-earned cash. show less

Unlike a lot of thrillers where the danger seems remote and like something that could never really happen to the reader personally, Broken Window’s plot is uncomfortably close and very real. Identity theft and data manipulation. While I’ve never had anything so drastic as what happens in the novel happen to me, I have had to cancel credit cards due to fraud. A few covert keystrokes and an entire history can be wiped out or changed. That and the idea that data mining companies really do have all this information about me is pretty scary. I could be completely fucked with and pretty easily and whose to say it wouldn't stick?

The most harrowing part of the novel was at the end when the killer was coming unraveled and struck out at show more Rhyme’s team. Pulaski’s wife sent to detention by the INS. Siletto charged with substance abuse and put on suspension. Rhyme’s electricity and phones shutting off. Sach’s car repossessed and sold for scrap. The killer’s plans for Thom and Pam. That scared me most and made me flip pages like a crazy person.

Other than that, it was a fairly typical Rhyme novel. Lots of forensic detail. Charts. Lists. Bad guy arrogance. Relationship details. Annoying references to Kathryn Dance. And a tantalizing one to the killer who gifted a clock to Lincoln in the last novel. show less

Have to say that this book absolutely terrified me detailing as it does the amount of information collected about us and held by various entities, from those wanting to sell us the right soap powder right through to various government agencies. Information which this book's criminal mastermind uses for his own nefarious ends. His first mistake is framing Lincoln Rhyme's estranged cousin for murder. In usual Jeffrey Deaver style the plot rolls along full of direction and misdirection, yet the perils that Amelia, Lincoln and their associates face from this foe are really scary, the monsters in the computer are more frightening that the ones that stalk the Manhatten streets.