Fault
Line
Non-series
Barry
Eisler
Ballantine
(Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-345-50508-5 (0345505085)
ISBN-13: 978-0-345-50508-8 (9780345505088)
Publication Date: March 2009
List Price: $25.00
Synopsis (from
the publisher): Silicon Valley: the eccentric inventor of a new
encryption application is murdered in an apparent drug deal. Istanbul:
a cynical undercover operative receives a frantic call from his
estranged brother, a patent lawyer who believes he’ll be the
next victim. And on the sun-drenched slopes of Sand Hill Road,
California’s nerve center of money and technology, old family
hurts sting anew as two brothers who share nothing but blood and
bitterness wage a desperate battle against a faceless enemy.
Alex Treven has sacrificed everything to achieve his sole ambition:
making partner in his high-tech law firm. But then the inventor of a
technology Alex is banking on is murdered, the patent examiner who
reviewed the innovation dies--and Alex himself narrowly escapes an
attack in his own home. Off balance, out of ideas, and running out of
time, he knows that the one person who can help him is the last person
he’d ever ask: his brother.
Ben Treven is a military liaison element, an elite undercover soldier
paid to “find, fix, and finish” high-value targets
in the United States global war on terror.
Disenchanted with what he sees as America’s culture of denial
and decadence, Ben lives his detached life in the shadows because the
black ops world is all he really knows--and because other than Alex,
whom he hasn’t spoken to since their mother died, his family
is long gone.
But blood is thicker than water, and when Ben receives Alex’s
frantic call he hurries to San Francisco to help him. Only then does
Alex reveal that there’s another player who knows of the
technology: Sarah Hosseini, a young Iranian American lawyer whom Alex
has long secretly desired--and whom Ben immediately distrusts. As these
three struggle to identify the forces attempting to silence them, Ben
and Alex are forced to examine the events that drove them apart--even
as Sarah’s presence, and her own secret yearnings, deepens
the fault line between them.
Review:
Barry Eisler departs from his John Rain mysteries to craft a
fast-paced, high-tech thriller set in the heart of Silicon Valley in Fault Line,
his first non-series novel.
Alex Treven is an ambitious attorney looking to make partner at his
firm. He sees his chance when a young inventor who has developed a new,
revolutionary data encryption algorithm hires him to file all the
necessary patent applications and associated paperwork. But when the
inventor and his contact at the patent office are murdered within hours
of each other, and he's threatened himself, Alex realizes something is
seriously wrong. He knows of only one person to call, his estranged
brother Ben. Ben, a covert ops agent for a secret agency within the US
government, reluctantly agrees to help but doesn't know exactly what
he's in for until someone tries to take him out. And he takes that
personally, very personally.
Despite four murders committed within the first chapter or two, Fault Line
starts fairly slowly for a thriller. The three principal characters
(Alex, Ben, and an associate of Alex's, Sarah) are introduced
separately but their stories are unremarkable. It isn't until they are
together that the plot picks up speed ... and interest. Together
they're battling an unknown force determined to acquire the encryption
software, but individually there are also interpersonal conflicts:
between Alex and Ben over the accidental death of their sister when
they were teenagers; Alex's unexpressed affection for Sarah, which is
unreciprocated; and Ben's suspicion that Sarah may be an embedded agent
because of her Iranian heritage and Sarah's resentment that he believes
that. Eisler handles these various subplots well while keeping the main
plot moving forward, but there's really just a little too much going on
here.
It isn't clear if Fault Line
is intended to be a stand-alone novel or not but Ben, as the most
dynamic and arguably most interesting character in the book, could
readily sustain a series on his own. To be sure, the book appears to be
written with a future screenplay in mind, with a simple plot that's
easy for the audience to follow, lots of action, political intrigue
with a high-tech slant, the obligatory romantic interlude, an
inevitable twist, and so on. The ending is a little too pat (then
again, most movies need to quickly wrap up loose threads as well), but
overall, Fault
Line is a thriller that
successfully accomplishes its primary goal of entertaining the reader.
Special thanks to Pump Up Your Book Promotion for providing a copy of Fault Line for this review.
Review Copyright © 2009 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Have you read Fault Line? How would you rate it?
Non-series novels by this author ...
Fault Line
Ballantine (Hardcover), March 2009
ISBN-10: 0-345-50508-5 (0345505085)
ISBN-13: 978-0-345-50508-8 (9780345505088)
Omnimystery
keywords for Fault Line
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Location(s) referenced: Silicon Valley, San
Francisco, California.
