Red Team Blues: A Martin Hench Novel
Ratings30
Average rating3.6
Let me start by saying that I wholeheartedly agree with all of the critiques of the american capital system that Doctorow raises and largely agree with his conclusions. This book has been poorly reviewed because those whom it critiques don't like being called out. I disliked the book because there was absolutely no character in the book. Marty is not a character, he is a person stuff happens around. Doctorow is a great writer, and I have liked much of his nonfiction, but this is a miss.
DNF. Doctorow's editor must be on vacation cause this is just... ugh. Main character is a Gary Stu, info dumps all over the place, and if I had paid money for this book, I'd be demanding a refund. Next!
A fun adventure read. Light and satisfying the book was a great porch companion on a cool spring night. I hope I get to spend more time with Martin Hench. Until then, I simply offer a toast for luck. Cheers!
This was good.
Very, very minor technicalities off, but very enjoyable for anyone in the industry - it's not really a book about tech.
Red Team Blues is a story about a 67 year old accountant getting ready to retire. You would say that sounds kind of odd and pretty boring, wouldn't you? And you would be dead wrong. What we get is a damn good caper novel – a high-pressure story full of suspense, danger, forensic sleuthing, and even a bit of romance.
The best place to learn more about what to expect is Cory Doctorow's own introduction over at John Scalzi's blog. https://whatever.scalzi.com/2023/04/26/the-big-idea-cory-doctorow-2/
I listened to the audio version which is very professionally narrated by Wil Wheaton. (I got it from Libro.fm. It is not available at Audible because Doctorow refuses to have DRM on his works.)
This was my first Cory Doctorow read. I quite enjoyed it; in fact, I powered right through it. I'll be checking out his other books.
Solid 4 stars.
A fun and fast-paced medium-boiled detective story, set in Silicon Valley, about an international money laundering scheme, kicked off by the murder of a cypherpunk, revolving around a 67 year old digital forensics guy with a very slight libertarian bent, who's kind to the homeless and working class and falls for a woman more or less his own age, solves the case using OSINT, all written by a leftist famous for critisizing big-tech. Yeah ... I liked it.