Hoisting aloft his many Locus, Campbell, and Prometheus awards, Doctorow returns with the story of brilliant Masha Maximow, who works for a transnational cybersecurity firm, creating the means for repressive regimes to spy on its dissidents. Sometimes (for fun) she helps the dissidents, too, but the damage she does has suddenly come close to home, and she's got choices. With a 125,000-copy first printing.

Following the best sellers Little Brother and Homeland, Doctorow introduces a new cast of characters in the same world who contend with the ethics of technology and surveillance. Masha Maximow recognized her special skills early, hacking her way into high-paying jobs with black ops firms while still in her teens. She tries to balance her work for these nefarious companies by helping her friends and their causes disrupt the very same systems. First overseas and then in her home town of San Francisco, her bosses go too far when they aim autonomous vehicles at protesters. Can Masha continue to compartmentalize what she does and who she works for or will she fully embrace trying to bend the arc of history toward justice? VERDICT Thriller readers of all ages will enjoy the cool tech (sunglasses that fool facial recognition software and blurry texts that evade screen shots), Masha's international exploits, and the impassioned arguments for privacy, transparency, and justice. [See Prepub Alert, 4/1/20]—Catherine Lantz, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago Lib.

Doctorow returns to the dystopian, all-too-near future of Little Brother for this gripping cyberthriller. Doctorow's potty-mouthed protagonist, Masha Maximow, a technological wunderkind fans will recognize from the earlier novels, is morally conflicted: at her high-powered, high-paying job with Xoth Intelligence, a gigantic cybersecurity firm, she uses her hacking skills to help malignant regimes spy on dissidents, while in her free time she helps the same dissenters escape the regimes' repressive wrath. The narrative alternates between flashbacks to her various adventures with Xoth and its rival Zyz, and her present-day involvement with a group of San Francisco radicals, as Masha gradually learns the price for all the luxury that spying on people has provided her. In Doctorow's chilling world, technological marvels turn on their users on a dime: the indispensable cellphone annihilates privacy, the self-driving car goes berserk and kills, and the internet is the world's most powerful surveillance tool. Doctorow lays the tech-talk on a bit thick, which may overwhelm a casual reader, but the high stakes and believable world keep the pages turning. Doctorow's fans will be pleased. (Oct.)