Cyber Attack by Tim Washburn

This book by Tim Washburn has its exciting moments, but overall I was not impressed by the book.  Part of this is because of the somewhat shallow characterization of the main characters, and also the repeated massive deaths caused by a group of hackers, which seemed excessive to me and came at the cost of an interesting plot to find them.

A 737 airplane explodes on a runway.  The accident is unexplained and while FBI special agent Hank Goodnight and a computer specialist, Paige Randall rush to the scene, a nuclear power plant explodes and a dam fails killing thousands suddenly make it clear that a national emergency is in progress.  While I was excited to read through the first third of the book, the author repeatedly shows us disaster and disaster with death and destruction, over and over.  After the third or fourth disaster, I grew weary of reading them and wondered what Paige and Hank were doing to solve the problem and catch those responsible.  As it turns out, very little.  The go to one scene after another, look at some computer code, and basically discover nothing.  The break that allows the capture of the hackers seemed like serendipity to me.  Without active participation by the principals of the book, I was left cold.

To be fair, the pace of the book is fast and the disasters well-researched and well-written, but it wasn't enough for me the recommend the book.  Not recommended. 2/5 stars.  Read this and other reviews of upcoming books at bookgeist.blogspot.com.