Chaos

Erika Conklin can hack her way into any computer--a talent that has turned her into an indentured servant for the FBI. The agency caught her making an illegal entry into classified government files and offered her a Hobson's choice: go to prison for a long time or go to work for them. She's sleepwalking through her long, boring days, fantasizing about the lucrative jobs that might have been hers in Redmond or Silicon Valley. Suddenly a series of high-tech failures, ranging from a bloody railway accident in Florida to an industrial disaster in Texas, kills hundreds of people. Almost as disturbing, inexplicable computer shutdowns threaten America's dominance in the semiconductor industry. Analyzing the computer failures, Erika realizes that sabotage is causing the technology meltdown. She traces the campaign of terror to the Japanese government's effort to destroy public confidence in American-made chips and thereby win the race for economic hegemony in the new millennium. From tracking down computer viruses to accompanying special agent Brent McClaine and his team on a high-risk mission to bring the perpetrators to justice, Conklin is a sassy, savvy heroine whose unique talents are all that stand between the successful future of American technology and a shutdown. R.J. Pineiro, a computer engineer, made a good run at the bestseller lists with two previous millennium thrillers (01-01-00, Y2K). This time, in Shutdown, his writing is more assured, his characters more fully explicated, and his pacing tighter. - -Jane Adams