Everything we do through a computer is recorded somewhere, and our digital footprints can be monitored by someone. We know this because it was exposed to and ignored by Americans after Edward Snowden leaked documents to the press concerning the activities of PRISM and the NSA. Whether this information is used for marketing research or used to collect demographic information is beside the point because this practice has one ultimate goal: surveillance. Every time you use a credit card, text or email with your phone or go near a camera, someone, somewhere, can find out your location. Right now it’s just the government using this information, but what happens when this massive amount of data is utilized by corporations and media conglomerates to progress their sales quotas and political goals? Privatized espionage.
End of Secrets, by Ryan Quinn, is a new novel that takes the suspense of a spy story and mixes it with the looming watchful presence that technology has on our society. It’s both suspenseful and thought-provoking. It follows the story of Kera, a CIA poster child who accepts a mission that requires her to shift to the private sector of information surveillance. As she poses as a journalist in New York City, Kera is required to keep her job a secret from her family, her friends and her fiancé. She’s assigned to track the whereabouts of missing artists using the Hawk information database. Using credit card statements, facial recognition software and phone records, she tracks the final steps of these famous performers and artists, and one common thread appears among the cases.
This book is a page-turner. I found myself putting it down only to spend the rest of the day trying to piece the clues together. The narrative shifts to other character perspectives without really telling us who we are following or where we are, which adds a complex layer of mystery that questions our trust of any of the characters. The balance between right and wrong and truth and lie is tested as Kera barely slips by undetected or gets caught in shocking moments. The world and people of the novel are described in a way that gives us a sinister feeling of being deep inside the belly of the beast. Ryan Quinn does a beautiful job of expressing feelings of anxiety, paranoia, fear and claustrophobia.
This book is great for people who enjoy the sense of paranoia caused by conspiracy theories. You’ll find yourself looking over your shoulder to get a good facial description of the guy riding the bus in a trench coat. You’ll start to wonder why your co-worker keeps to themselves. This novel will make you feel worryingly suspicious but also carefully curious. It’s a dangerous and vulnerable world to experience, and it might stir some panic over any of your own dark secrets. It’s a story about our blind trust in an authority that can see everything.
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