The Empress File

Quick and lots of fun, The Empress File is the second in John Sanford's "Kidd" series. Part of the fun is that these are largely (though far from entirely) cyber-theft capers, but they were written in the relatively early days of cyber-world, so the techniques and equipment are noticeably outdated. They still make calls from phone booths, for instance. Anyway, appealing characters, if not particularly believable in terms of their slick skills make for an enjoyable reading experience. There are some bad, bad people running a southern town. Aren't there always?

Kidd returns, as does LuEllen, a professional thief who is Kidd’s occasional partner and occasional lover. This time his task is to take down Longstreet, a corrupt Delta town on the eastern side of the Mississippi River, presumably in Louisiana but perhaps Mississippi. Not just an expert computer hacker, Kidd has made his official living as a designer of political strategy. It makes him the perfect person to destroy the town’s power structure. The conclusion is not as satisfying as in Kidd’s previous outing, Fool’s Run, mainly because it ends in a physical confrontation, denying us the pleasure of watching the bad guy’s world crumble around them. But still worth the read.

In real life, I dislike thieves, people who snort cocaine to get excited and I do not care for hackers. The superstition of the thief does not add to his charm. In books, this describes the heroes of the Kidd series, including the Empress file, and I dislike them too. Sandford being very smart, he made the people who opposed these sad heroes much worse than that. What I really liked in the book is the problem: how does one get rid of the corrupt administration of a small town?It is very well studied, down to how to change the district lines.
Altogether, an amusing read.

When I read the Devil’s Code, I wasn’t that impressed. But this paperback was cheap at Sam’s Club so I figured what the hell. It starts out with Kidd getting, what I guess could be called an email from a guy he knows that keeps online databases and occasionally hacks into various computer networks. If networks is the right word. The technology in 1991 is so primitive compared to now that it’s hard to take seriously. This friend, Bobby, is also a somewhat reknowned phone phreak. Like that means anything now. I guess he’s an old school hacker. Anyway, for whatever reason, he wants to take down this group of asshole public officials in Longstreet. In addition to just being scumbags, they are racist murderers as well. One guy in show more particular, the dogcatcher, is a raving psychotic and enjoys shooting kittens for fun. They're just begging for Kidd & Bobby to take them down.

This was a very fast read and was more interesting and faster paced than the other novel (at least as far as I can remember). The style was similar to that of the Prey novels, but the character Kidd was essentially different. Apart from a certain casualness regarding sex and relationships, he was pretty different from Davenport. Not as dark. show less

Published about the same time as the earlier novels in the Lucas Davenport series, this second offering in the Kidd/LuEllen series is a much less compelling read. Kidd is a con artist/computer hacker/painter who teams up with burglar LuEllen on his more complex undertakings. Things usually go awry and they are left to scramble and improvise to escape with their life.

In The Empress File their scam works much better than in "The Fool’s Run," the previous Kidd/LuEllen caper. However, the story is not particularly compelling and I found it less much less interesting than most other Sandford novels.

The ending is particularly dissatisfying. Kidd’s decision to retrieve a murder weapon is particularly puzzling because it appears to be show more unnecessary. His decision to hold on to it instead of making use of it quickly compounds the situation. Readers can tell almost immediately that it is a plot device designed to place Kidd and LuEllen in danger and of course it does exactly that.

Following the somewhat overdone and dissatisfying climax Sandford devotes the final 15 pages to telling us how everything else turned out. This classic violation of the principle of, “show, don’t tell,” could be assigned as a textbook example illustrating the importance of that dictum. show less

Synopsis: 'Kidd and LuEllen are a winning pair of lovers and liars plotting the ultimate sting. Their target is the wealthy (and corrupt) mayor of a small Mississippi river town. Their setup includes buying a houseboat, assuming false identities, and exposing local scandals. Their scam is perfect. Until everything goes wrong….' From Penguin Random House website.

Review: Animal cruelty and ubiquitous violence, and less than an adequate mystery line left me rather unsatisfied.

Kidd and LuEllen are back for more action and danger. This time things are heating up in along the Mississippi. Some crooked polititians are robbing a town dry and causing other problems. They are brought in when Bobby contacts Kidd about a prodigy he was in contact with in this small town. A young black kid who showed promise as programmer, was accidentally shot dead by the local police and it was all hushed up.

Kidd and LuEllen go down and stir the pot and all kinds of stuff floats to the surface.