David Sanger, an ambitious young physicist, attends a party at which a pompous older scientist, who just happens to have thwarted the younger man's innovative ideas, is murdered. Suddenly it is not just David's career, but his life that is at stake. Are his ideas that important? Who's out to stop David from changing the world?

Reviews

"Exceptionally good. Besides being an excellent mystery, it is a convincing look at the near future of nanotechnology."
—Vernor Vinge

"McCarthy deftly blends the SF and mystery genres with a healthy dose of paranoia to create a fast, completely engrossing thriller."
—Monica Simmons, Locus

"The pacing is brisk. McCarthy offers memorable characters, and manages to tell an enjoyable and imaginative tale of social and technological speculation without loading on the hardware."
—Publishers Weekly

"A fast-moving adventure yarn. McCarthy deftly mixes the action story with a strong background of science."
—Fred Cleaver, The Denver Post

"Breathless... Its striking quality is not so much the fascinating science as the canny use of hardboiled prose and keen sense of pacing. Any author with the knack for tight, vivid writing and good SF mystery in an often clueless field should be applauded."
—Charles DeLint, F&SF

"An interesting murder mystery involving nanotechnology, political intrigue, virtual reality and industrial espionage. McCarthy manages to squeeze quite a lot into a relatively small package, including some telling social commentary."
—Michael Wolff, Starlog

About the Author

Engineer/Novelist/Journalist/Entrepreneur Wil McCarthy is a former contributing editor for WIRED magazine and science columnist for the SyFy channel (previously SciFi channel), where his popular "Lab Notes" column ran from 1999 through 2009. A lifetime member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, he has been nominated for the Nebula, Locus, Seiun, AnLab, Colorado Book, Theodore Sturgeon and Philip K. Dick awards, and contributed to projects that won a Webbie, an Eppie, a Game Developers' Choice Award, and a General Excellence National Magazine Award. In addition, his imaginary world of "P2", from the novel LOST IN TRANSMISSION, was rated one of the 10 best science fiction planets of all time by Discover magazine. His short fiction has graced the pages of magazines like Analog, Asimov's, WIRED, and SF Age, and his novels include the New York Times Notable BLOOM, Amazon.com "Best of Y2K" THE COLLAPSIUM (a national bestseller) and, most recently, TO CRUSH THE MOON. He has also written for TV, appeared on The History Channel and The Science Channel, and published nonfiction in half a dozen magazines, including WIRED, Discover, GQ, Popular Mechanics, IEEE Spectrum, and the Journal of Applied Polymer Science. Previously a flight controller for Lockheed Martin Space Launch Systems and later an engineering manager for Omnitech Robotics, McCarthy is now the president and Chief Technology Officer of RavenBrick LLC in Denver, CO, a developer of smart window technologies. He lives in Colorado with his family.