Going Zero by Anthony McCarten

On April 25, 2023 By The Unseen LibraryIn Thriller1 Comment

Going Zero Cover 2

Publisher: Harper/Macmillan (Ebook – 11 April 2023)

Series: Standalone

Length: 298 pages

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Acclaimed screenwriter and author Anthony McCarten presents a compelling and intense techno-thriller that shows readers the terrifying future of surveillance technology in the intriguing read, Going Zero.

It is a time of great expansion in the world’s spy technology as every country works to increase their internal and external surveillance capability. To keep up with their rivals, the CIA have been convinced to partner with billionaire Silicon Valley tycoon Cy Baxter to create the ultimate surveillance program. Known as FUSION, the new system will allow the government, through Baxter’s company, to find anyone in the country, no matter how hard they hide.

But before FUSION can officially go online and Baxter’s company can be awarded its massive, multi-billion-dollar contract, Baxter needs to prove that the system can deliver everything he promises. To that end, the ultimate test is proposed, pitting 10 random Americans against the new technology. At an appointed hour, all 10 participants will need to “Go Zero”, going completely off the grid and leaving their lives, families, and homes behind to hide as best they can. If they can elude the company’s technology and capture teams for 30 days, then they receive $3 million in prize money.

As the participants each choose their own unique ways of vanishing off the face of the Earth, one stands out amongst the security experts, tech geniuses and law enforcement professions that have been recruited. Boston librarian Kaitlyn Day was chosen to be an easy target, an everyday woman who could test the most basic bounds of the program. However, she swiftly shows that she is far more skilled and versed in counter surveillance tactics than anyone expects. As the test continues, Kaitlyn manages to counteract every trick FUSION has up its sleeve, and soon Baxter grows desperate trying to find her. But as the test nears its end, it becomes clear that there is far more to Kaitlyn than meets the eye, especially as she has a very personal reason for playing this elaborate game.

This was an awesome and impressive novel from McCarten, who presents the reader with a fun scenario guaranteed to grab their attention. Going Zero is an awesome book that I really got drawn into thanks to its compelling narrative and fast-paced style. I actually managed to read this entire book in a day, as I got quite hooked on the story and just kept going, trying to see how everything ended and I really was not disappointed with how it turned out.

Going Zero’s story itself is great, as it plays out like a giant, technological game of cat and mouse throughout the United States. It reminded me a lot of the reality show, Hunted, on steroids, with the facilitators, the CIA and Cy Baxter’s team, having access to every single surveillance feed and scrap of digital information they need to catch the players. The first half of the book is primarily focused on this hunt, with most of the attention on both Kaitlyn Day and Baxter’s team as they hunt for her. The author makes great use of short, sharp chapters to move the story along at a very quick pace, which also limits the reader’s desire to stop reading, as the end of the next chapter is always in sight. McCarten sets the entire scenario up extremely well, and you are soon dragged into the intriguing middle of this over-the-top fugitive situation. It is incredibly fun seeing Kaitlyn’s initial exploits, as well as the overarching reach of Baxter, whose insane control room put me in mind of the game masters in The Hunger Games film. These two intriguing primary perspectives are often interspersed with quick interludes that show the other nine participants slowly getting hunted down by Baxter’s capture teams. Each of their methods of hiding is unique to them and seeing them getting effortlessly capture serves as a rather compelling counterpoint to Kaitlyn’s own endeavours to avoid detection. I really got caught up in this hunt scenario, which dominates the first half of the novel, mainly because it was so damn fun, intriguing, and a little terrifying to see the FUSION system in action. While I would have been happy enough to read a lot more of this, McCarten introduces a rather good twist about halfway through that throws everything on its head.

Now, while the inclusion of a twist wasn’t too surprising, especially as the plot had been hinting like crazy that something was suspicious about the protagonist, the full extent of it is pretty damn epic, especially as it makes you rethink everything that occurred in the first half of the book. McCarten had done a really good job of inserting subtle hints and clues into the preceding story, and the way they were dragged together was really clever. This major twist changes the entire story around and moves it from a mostly harmless story about advanced hide and seek to an intense and personal thriller with some major national security ramifications. The second half of the book goes into overdrive, especially as, after the twist, you are particularly attached to the protagonist and her potential victory, while the antagonist becomes easier to root against. There is conspiracy, espionage and deeply personal attacks against the various characters, as everyone is suddenly trying to survive the changes that the protagonist brought on. I deeply enjoyed where the story went at this point, and the resulting exciting scenes, which also included some more twists, continue to drag you in and ensure that that stick along for the ride. The author provides a great, if highly cynical, ending for this entire narrative, and you come away feel satisfied, especially as it leaves the reader wanting more. An overall impressive and addictive story that I had such a great time getting through.

Perhaps one of the most distinctive features of Going Zero was McCarten’s frank and often terrifying look at the state of surveillance technology in the world today. The hunt for the 10 participants requires FUSION team to employ a ton of intriguing methods to find their prey, with the hunters mapping out their targets’ habits, history, and personal connections to find where they will likely go and who they will try to interact with. Some crazy technology and methods are featured throughout the book and McCarten combines some clear research with some more imaginative approaches to reveal how the hunters were able to find the contestants. While some of the elements were obviously enhanced for narrative purposes, the story does feature quite a few more realistic methods that honestly had me thinking about how much information I have on the grid (they’d catch me in less than 10 minutes). This intriguing focus on how humans have become used to sharing their information and leaving themselves upon to tracking and exploitation becomes a key part of the plot as certain characters start to misuse this information for their own good. McCarten also introduces a great counterpoint to this through Kaitlyn’s perspective, as her insights into the surveillance world provide some interesting contrast, especially when she starts turning the tables on the hunters and their technology. The loss of privacy and anonymity ended up being a pretty big theme for this novel, and I think readers will come out with their eyes opened about just how easy it may be for governments or companies to track where you are or what you are doing (or thinking) in the future.

I really liked the fun blend of characters that McCarten featured throughout Going Zero, especially as thanks to the focus on privacy loss and personal investigation, you soon learn a lot about them. The fun, if brief, snapshots into the nine other participants in the beta test added some great colour to the story, especially as McCarten had to quickly and comprehensively showcase who they were and how they think in order to show how FUSION caught them. Cy Baxter, the brains behind FUSION, was a great figure within the story as well, as he ticked all the boxes of an egotistical billionaire and tech genius. While he was initially shown to be an ambitious and eccentric figure who was attempting to introduce the system for the right reasons, the moment he gets some opposition you begin to see the real Cy Baxter under the surface, and it is not pretty. Thanks to his ego and his own belief in his intelligence, Baxter keeps going further and further down the dark path to achieve his goals, and by the end of the book he proves to quite an effective and highly unlikable antagonist (with some great similarities to a certain real-life tech billionaire twit).

However, most of the best character work is reserved for main protagonist Kaitlyn Day, who had quite a fascinating arc throughout the book. I loved the way that McCarten initially built her up as a typical librarian and a potential amateur without any real chance of succeeding. However, it soon becomes clear that there is far more to Kaitlyn, especially as some of her earliest moves prove to be so infuriating to Baxter and the FUSION team. McCarten drops some excellent hints throughout her storyline about her past which provide some potential clues about what is about to happen with her character, especially when combined with the research the antagonists do on her. I really cannot emphasise how well McCarten set up the twist around Kaitlyn, and the full details of her life and motivations only further increase how much you start rooting for her. There is some noticeable but relatable character change that occurs after the twist is revealed, and it was interesting to see how serious she was and how she managed to manipulate the system. These characters, and more, helped to turn Going Zero into quite the excellent read, and I loved some of the intriguing figures that emerged.

Going Zero was an exceptional and captivating read that had me hooked from the very start. Anthony McCarten’s unique scenario led to an exciting and highly fun story that proved near impossible to put down. I powered through Going Zero in no time at all and this was one of the more entertaining books of 2023 for me so far. An excellent and highly enjoyable read that has potential as a film, Going Zero comes highly recommended and is definitely worth checking out.

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Relentless by Mark Greaney

On March 15, 2021February 2, 2023 By The Unseen LibraryIn Audiobook, Five-Star Books, Thriller36 Comments

Publisher: Sphere/Audible Audio (Audiobook – 16 February 2021)

Series: Gray Man – Book 10

Length: 15 hours and 39 minutes

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

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One of the leading authors of the spy thriller genre, Mark Greaney, returns with the tenth epic book in his long-running Gray Man series, Relentless, an impressive and captivating read.

Mark Greaney is talented author who has been absolutely killing it over the last 10+ years ever since his 2009 debut. While he has written some other books, including seven contributions to Tom Clancy’s iconic Jack Ryan universe (three cowritten with Clancy, and four written after Clancy’s death) and the military thriller Red Metal (cowritten with Hunter Ripley Rawlings, and one of my favourite books and audiobooks of 2019), Greaney is probably best known for his awesome Gray Man series. Starting with The Gray Man in 2009, this series follows Court Gentry, a disavowed CIA operative turned assassin known as the Gray Man. I am a major fan of this series, having read the last few entries, Mission Critical and One Minute Out (the latter was one of my favourite books and audiobooks of 2020), and I have been looking forward to this book for a while (indeed it was one of my most anticipated releases for 2021).

Around the world, several top intelligence agents are disappearing, and CIA deputy director Matthew Hanley wants to know why. When a former American agent who was believed to be dead resurfaces in Venezuela under the protection of the local secret police, Hanley has no choice but to send in his most dangerous asset, Court Gentry, the Gray Man. As the Gray Man, Gentry is feared around the world as a lethal assassin and rogue operative, but his real role is as a deniable hitter for Hanley at the CIA. Journeying down to Venezuela, Gentry makes contact with the former agent, who spins a tale of conspiracy and espionage in the heart of Europe before being brutally murdered by a heavily armed team of assassins.

Barely managing to escape with his life and convinced of a larger conspiracy at foot, Gentry convinces Hanley to send him to Berlin to uncover the truth. At the same time, Gentry’s fellow CIA agent and lover, Zoya Zakharova, is infiltrating a private German intelligence firm with connections to the dead man in Venezuela. As Zoya attempts to find out who is really running the organisation, she finds herself once again in the crosshairs of her former masters in Russian intelligence, who send their most lethal assassin to kill her.

As Gentry and Zoya fight for their life in Berlin, they start to understand the full breadth of the conspiracy they have found themselves amid. Someone is playing a dangerous game at a global level and they are willing manipulate the American and European governments to further their goals. Can Gentry and his allies get to the bottom of this conspiracy before it is too late or will a terrible attack lead America into an unwinnable war?

The hits keep on coming from Greaney, as Relentless was a fantastic and incredible novel that is one of the best books of 2021 so far. I loved the impressive and complex story contained within Relentless with all its twists and turns, and I swiftly became enthralled by the well-written and intense narrative. I had an outstanding time reading this book and it gets an easy five-star rating from me.

At the heart of this awesome novel is an intense and fast-paced narrative that readers will quickly become addicted to. Set shortly after the events of One Minute Out, this multi-perspective narrative sends protagonist Court Gentry to South America on a dangerous mission that has connections to the main conspiracy. After a not entirely unexpected destructive fire fight from a third party, Gentry heads to Europe where he seeks to back up his love interest, Zoya, who is undercover in Berlin following another connected lead. At the same time, the narrative expands out to showcase other groups involved in the conspiracy, including a manipulative spy master, two separate teams of killers who are hunting different protagonists, and an Iranian sleeper agent, just to name a few. All their various storylines and character arcs are extremely interesting and exciting, as the author has crafted together some compelling narratives for each of them. Greaney throws in a lot of amazing surprises and twists throughout the novel, and while I was able to guess how a few things were going to turn out, I could not predict the amazing scale and complexity of the overarching conspiracy that the characters find themselves involved with. There is a comprehensive and captivating focus on international espionage throughout Relentless which fits into the story perfectly, and I loved all the cool details that author included, including a recreation of a recent real-life espionage event of great significance. All these storylines come together extremely well, ending with a massive and memorable conclusion that was a lot of fun, and I ended up loving every second of this cool story. Greaney also sets up some intriguing storylines for future novels in the series and I am really looking forward to seeing what happens next.

In addition to Relentless’s epic story, I really enjoyed Greaney’s cool writing style, which complemented the narrative perfectly. The novel can be easily enjoyed by people unfamiliar with the series, and I really appreciated the amazing amount of detail and excitement loaded into the book. There a particular focus on trade craft with this latest novel, with some great explanations about the various spy techniques utilised by the various characters, and this pumped some real authenticity into the story. I also really enjoyed all the incredible action sequences featured within this latest novel. Greaney has always had a talent for writing explosive and powerful action scenes, and Relentless contains some impressive examples of this as the protagonists duke it out with a wide range of enemies across the world. Every action scene is well-planned out, realistic and very intense, ensuring the reader is constantly on the edge of their seat.

I also absolutely loved the author’s excellent use of multiple perspectives throughout the novel, which was a real highlight for me. While there is an obvious focus on characters like Gentry and Zoya, nearly every other character, including many of the antagonists, have their side of the story shown. I found this worked extremely well to tell a complex narrative, as the reader gets to see what everyone, from the mastermind of the conspiracy to members of the various kill teams hunting the protagonists, is doing and thinking. Not only does this build up suspense, as you know in advance some of the dangers and threats coming towards the protagonists, but you also get to see the antagonists react to all of Gentry’s actions and watch them adjust accordingly. This makes for a much richer and more impressive story, and it works particularly well in some of the combat sequences, as you get to see all the characters manoeuvring around the battlefield. There are also some extremely awesome chapters where various characters are following each other throughout Berlin. Watching several point-of-view characters engaging in surveillance and countersurveillance operations against each other, with some other interested parties thrown in for good measure, was very cool, and it ended up being one of the cleverest sequences in the novel. I really loved how this awesome writing style enhanced the story and I think it worked really well.

As usual, Greaney comes up with an excellent selection of characters for Relentless, all of whom get explored in substantial detail throughout the book. Most of Relentless’s focus is naturally on the series’ main protagonist, the titular Gray Man himself, Court Gentry. Greaney continues to paint an interesting figure with Gentry, as a former official CIA operative who was forced to become an assassin with a conscience, before secretly re-joining the CIA in the Poison Apple program as a deniable asset. Gentry has a great, action-packed story in Relentless, getting into all manner of dangerous situations, and I loved the cool ways he attempts to extricate himself from them, often by killing his opponents. I also really liked how Greaney gave Gentry a significant handicap in this latest adventure, as he is suffering from a serious infection from a stab wound gained in One Minute Out. This infection reduces his reaction speed and physical prowess throughout the book and forces him to seek continued medical care, all of which makes his mission even more dangerous and problematic, and which really raises the stakes for the entire book. It was also great to see more of Zoya and Zack Hightower, the other two Poison Apple agents, both of whom were not featured that much in the previous novel. Both these agents have some compelling and entertaining arcs in this book, and I always enjoy how well the former Russian knockout and the aging American special operator compliment Gentry as a team. Interestingly, you also get to see a lot more of CIA deputy director Matthew Hanley, the man secretly running Gentry, as he even gets into the field for a particularly dangerous assignment. Some big moments occur for Hanley in Relentless, and it will be interesting to find out what happens to him next. I also quite enjoyed the wild Russian assassin, Maksim Akulov, a drunk lunatic with a death wish, who is assigned to kill Zoya, but eventually starts targeting Gentry, seeing him as the ultimate challenge. All these amazing characters, and more, really added a lot to the story, and I look forward to seeing how the ones who survived are utilised in the future.

While I did receive a physical copy of Relentless, I ended up enjoying this book in its audiobook format instead. I have had a lot of fun with Greaney’s audiobooks in the past and I generally find that the intense and epic action and espionage translates into this format extremely well. Relentless was no exception, and I found myself really enjoying listening to all the cool sequences unfold and at times I almost felt like I was there witnessing it. With a run time of 15 hours and 40 minutes, Relentless’s audiobook is pretty long and might take listeners a while to get through. However, it is worth the time investment and you will find yourself quickly powering through it once you get caught up in the story (I personally listened to it for nearly five hours straight at one point). This latest Gray Man audiobook also sees the return of Jay Snyder as narrator. Snyder is an experienced and prolific audiobook narrator who has contributed his voice to a wide range of awesome audiobooks in the past, including all the previous entries in the series. Snyder has a fantastic gruff voice that fits the tone of Relentless perfectly, and which he uses to great effect moving the story along and describing all the deadly action and chaos. Snyder also produces some great voices for the various characters which I think encapsulate each person really well and proved to be very effective. I was a little wary about a Minnesota accent that he had to do for one of the characters, but it grew on me as the book progressed and I think it was a decent attempt in the end. All of this makes for an epic and enjoyable audiobook and this is definitely an amazing way to check Relentless out.

Relentless is another exceptional spy thriller from the always impressive Mark Greaney that comes very highly recommended. The 10^th entry in the always outstanding Gray Man series, Relentless contains another captivating and deeply exciting narrative, which, combined with Greaney’s impeccable writing and fun characters, makes for a truly excellent thriller. I had such an awesome time reading Relentless, and this book is one of the best releases of 2021 so far. I look forward to seeing how Greaney continues this series in the future, and I must really go back and check out some of the earlier Gray Man novels this year, especially as a movie adaption of The Gray Man is currently being made by the Russo brothers with Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans set to star (I mean, talk about a movie with some real potential).

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The Frenchman by Jack Beaumont

On January 18, 2021August 13, 2022 By The Unseen LibraryIn Thriller12 Comments

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Publisher: Allen & Unwin (Trade Paperback – 19 January 2021)

Series: Standalone/Book One

Length: 392 pages

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

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Prepare to dive into the world of international espionage as debuting author Jack Beaumont delivers an impressive and deeply authentic spy thriller with The Frenchman.

In these turbulent times, France faces threats from innumerable international enemies and terrorist attacks, and it falls to the members of the DGSE, also known as The Company, France’s famed foreign intelligence service, to discover dangers in their infancy and eliminate them. Alec de Payns is one of the top operatives of the top-secret Y Division of the DGSE, who take on the Company’s most dangerous international assignments. With a speciality in manipulating targets into turning against their country or revealing their secrets, de Payns is the man on the ground in many of these missions, ensuring that terrorists operations and illegal weapons programs pose no threat to his country.

During his latest operation in Palermo, Sicily, de Payns attempts to infiltrate a dangerous terrorist group who have their sights set on attacking France. However, before their planned contact and surveillance can begin in earnest, de Payns’s cover is blown and he is forced to flee from the scene, leaving behind two dead bodies. Returning to Paris, de Payns begins to suspect that he was betrayed by a fellow agent, forcing himself to consider that his life and the lives of his young family may be in danger.

With the threat of a potential traitor hanging over him, de Payns is sent on another urgent mission to Pakistan to investigate a secretive biological weapons facility that is rumoured to be producing a weaponised bacteria for an attack on France. In an attempt to gain information from within the facility, de Payns begins to establish a new identity to get closer to a person connected to the bacteria production. However, when he is once again compromised, de Payns must find out who has betrayed him and what their sinister plans for Paris are.

The Frenchman is a clever and exciting spy thriller from an intriguing new author that takes a detailed and captivating look at French foreign intelligence. This amazing new novel was written by Jack Beaumont, a pseudonym of a former French special operator who worked as part of the DGSE secret service. Having relocated to Australia, Beaumont has utilised his experiences to create an enthralling spy thriller, packed full of impressive detail and with a central character strongly based around the author himself. This results in an extremely thrilling and compelling novel that I found to be extremely addictive and which was a heck of a lot of fun to read.

This cool novel contains an epic and impressive story that sees the protagonist engage in a series of high-stakes espionage missions across the world. Told primarily from the point of view of the main character, Alex de Payns, The Frenchman’s narrative starts of as one of standard international espionage, with the complex and damaged protagonist engaging in some standard missions. However, the narrative quickly takes a turn into more dangerous territory when de Payns’s cover is blown and it is suspected that someone within his organisation set him up. Now forced to not only investigate a dangerous weapons facility but also determine who betrayed him, The Frenchman quickly becomes an impressive tale of treachery, paranoia and deceit, with de Payns finding his attention drawn in several different directions. Beaumont has crafted together an excellent and compelling narrative here, which unfolds in a methodical and deliberate pace. Every story element is intricately connected, and the reader has an excellent time seeing the protagonist engage in his operations while also attending to his personal missions and his fears over the mysterious traitor in the organisation. The author ensures that the story goes in some intriguing directions, with some captivating and suspenseful high-stakes scenes pulling the protagonist, his family and innumerable French citizens into lethal danger. Beaumont sticks in some great twists, especially around the DGSE traitor subplot, and I particularly loved the clever, if somewhat dark, ending. This amazing story blends in well with the author’s intriguing main protagonist and the insanely authentic detail to create an outstanding spy thriller that readers should be able to power through extremely quickly.

It is impossible to talk about The Frenchman without discussing the sheer level of detail that Beaumont shoves into the novel as he delves into the various aspects of spycraft and modern-day espionage operations. Readers get a major crash course in every aspect of French intelligence work, from how the organisation works, what sort of operations they run and the sort of people who are employed as French spies. There is also a huge focus on tradecraft, as the author meticulously details all the various tricks and procedures that operatives are required to perform during operations. Beaumont features so many cool examples of tradecraft throughout this book, including the creation and maintenance of legends, coming up with cover stories while undercover in other nations, the manipulation and management of contacts for information and how to run a successful surveillance operation. There is also a huge amount of focus on the various procedures operatives go through in everyday life, not just when they are on missions, including all the different countersurveillance and strategic movements that the protagonist utilises to ensure he is not being followed home. I also liked how the story depicted espionage missions as relatively low-key and less exciting than people familiar with Hollywood blockbusters would expect. Rather than the protagonist engaging in major action sequences or single-handedly taking out every single terrorist or spy he encounters, he instead performs complex surveillance operations or discrete undercover contacts, which allows his team to build up the intelligence they need to send in proper combat specialists. All of this proves to be incredibly fascinating, if a little overwhelming, and I really loved the sheer amount of authenticity that Beaumont brings to The Frenchman by exploring this tradecraft. While the story did occasionally get bogged down in jargon and acronyms, the author’s attention to detail and impressive insights made for a much more realistic story, which really stands out from some of the other spy thrillers out there.

In addition to this comprehensive examination of tradecraft and international espionage, I was also impressed with how Beaumont examined the psyche of an intelligence operative, highlighted the various struggles that people in this profession experience. As the story is primarily told from de Payns’s point of view, the readers get a great view of how his job as a spy impacts him: increased stress, panic attacks and a major sense of guilt due to some of the deaths attributed to him. The Frenchman also examines the strains that this job has on operative’s family life, and the author makes it clear that most marriages to spies do not last due to the constant secrecy and uncertainty. Beaumont does a particularly good job exploring this through de Payns, as the protagonist is constantly forced to keep things from his wife, while also disappearing for days at end, reappearing mentally wearied and afraid. These problems are further exacerbated by the overwhelming sense of paranoia that de Payns carries with him as he is constantly worried that his enemies will find out about his family and use them to manipulate or destroy him. For example, he becomes increasingly suspicious of a new family friend who his wife and kids welcome into their lives, and he spends time investigating them and their family, trying to determine if they are threats. Due to the story being told from de Payns’s perspective, this new character appears extremely suspicious, and the reader is uncertain whether they are an actual threat or a red herring brought on by the protagonist’s paranoia. This portrayal of the mindset of the spy is deeply compelling, and I really liked that the author took the time to dive into this, especially as he probably utilised his own experiences to make it even more detailed and realistic.

Debuting author Jack Beaumont has produced an epic and exciting read with The Frenchman, a clever and deeply compelling spy thriller that ruthlessly grabs the reader’s attention and refuses to let go. Filled with intense amounts of detail and dripping with authenticity, The Frenchman is an impressive and highly enjoyable novel that is strongly recommended. I had an absolute blast with this debut and I really hope that Beaumont continues to write more intriguing spy novels in the future.

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