- Title:
- Going Zero
- By:
- Anthony McCarten
- Pages:
- 304
- Rating:
- 4
From four-time Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Anthony McCarten comes a breakneck, wickedly entertaining thriller for our times, a twisty, action-packed novel reminiscent of the best Michael Crichton technothrillers, in which a woman must find a way to elude the most powerful forces of government and high tech.
In the name of national security, the CIA in partnership with Silicon Valley wunderkind Cy Baxter have created the ultimate surveillance program known as FUSION. Ahead of its roll out, ten Americans have been carefully selected to Beta test the groundbreaking system.
At the appointed hour, each of the ten will have two hours to “Go Zero”—to turn their cellphones off, cut ties with friends and family, and use any means possible to disappear. They will then have 30 days to evade detection and elude the highly sophisticated Capture Teams tasked to find them using the most cutting-edge technology. The goal is to see if it is possible to successfully go “off the grid” and escape detection.
The stakes are immense. If FUSION is a success, Cy Baxter will secure a coveted 10-year, $100 billion dollar government contract and access to intelligence resources he truly believes will save lives. For any participant who beats the massive surveillance, it means a $3 million cash prize.
Among the contestants is an unassuming Boston librarian named Kaitlyn Day. She’s been chosen as the gimme, the easy target expected to be found first. But Kaitlyn excels at confounding expectations. Her talents at this particular game are far more effective than all the security experts suspect, and her reasons for playing far more personal than anyone can imagine. . . .
I was hooked right up until the last day or so, but the final segment saw things devolve a little into something of a mess. The cleverness and strategy seemed to go out the window a little, and I found myself wondering just how many times revealing the same secret, all-be-it to different people, could work.
Nonetheless this was an engaging and exciting story for the most part, and I’d have no hesitation in picking up another novel by this author, who’s very clearly mastered writing for screen with those short, punchy chapters and dramatic action scenes.