Review by Booklist Review
This prequel to Red Team Blues (2023), about 67-year-old self-employed forensic accountant Martin Hench, is set in 2006, when Martin is younger and more idealistic, but already has his nose for danger. When a friend offers Martin an opportunity for some R & R on the luxurious Catalina Island, off the coast of Southern California, Martin questions the cost of a $25 fast-food hamburger and then stumbles onto a financial scheme of breathtaking complexity involving shell companies, offshore accounts, the privatized prison system, and the lives of hundreds of thousands of people subject to it. Set in the years just before the 2008 financial crash, this thrilling account of one man taking on the ultra-rich dives into the complex worlds of financial machination and considers the exploitation of public good for personal gain. Great for fans of thrillers set in the world of money like Robert Harris' The Fear Index (2012) and Sheldon Siegel's Hot Shot (2019), as well as fans of Doctorow's energetic, character-driven sf novels.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Doctorow's second financial thriller featuring forensic accountant Martin Hench (after 2023's Red Team Blues) prioritizes satire over realism, marring a plot centered on very real concerns about the privatization of prisons and the lead-up to the 2008 financial crash. In an alternate 2006, Hench vacations with his friend Scott Warms on Catalina Island, where he learns an island-wide ban on fast food has created a black market for In-N-Out burgers that turns out to be a pyramid scheme. His efforts to expose those at the top of the pyramid cause trouble for Warms, who ends up (unbelievably) pleading guilty to two felonies, risking life imprisonment under California's draconian Three Strikes Law. Warms is incarcerated in a facility run by SCAR, "a private-equity-funded 'roll-up' of a dozen smaller prison companies," and Hench sets out to expose SCAR's fraudulent practices, hoping to help Warms on the inside. Doctorow paints in broad strokes here and though his points are well taken, they are not always well made. This disappoints. (Feb.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
When readers left cyber detective and forensic accountant Martin Hench at the end of Red Team Blues, he was settling down in a well-deserved retirement. This book finds Marty taking a trip down memory lane to the heyday of the Silicon Valley dot-com boom in the early 2000s, when he exposed a fast-food scam, and relating a fascinating tale of financial skullduggery, long cons, and the delivery of ice-cold revenge. Marty's reminiscences range from obscure financial machinations to heaping helpings of social commentary but always move the underlying thriller story forward in a backwards heist tale that delivers a righteously satisfying ending to the surprise of both the reader and the villain. This novel, like his previous outing, rides on Marty's voice. He has a jaundiced view of everything, but he tells it with such style and verve that readers are caught up and ride along on the surface until the shark beneath the water jumps out and bites the villain where it hurts. Doctorow well knows the world he skewers here, having written extensively about tech-sector monopolies, the ethics of the internet, and the state of copyright and creativity in the digital age (including in two recent nonfiction books, The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation and Chokepoint Capitalism: How Big Tech and Big Content Captured Creative Labor Markets and How We'll Win Them Back). VERDICT Readers who love heist and caper stories will fall under Marty's spell.--Marlene Harris
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