Dervish is Digital

An established author, Pat Cadigan has twice won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for best science fiction novel of the year. This is the second outing for Dore Konstantin, the futuristic crime fighter first introduced in Tea For An Empty Cup. Despite very expensive equipment, Artificial Reality is the new global addiction and therefore a prime target for the ingenious criminal. Drugs may enhance participation in A.R. but tracing users or other miscreants and showing proof offline is a prodigious task. Dore Konstantin is bewildered and angry at having to justify her every move as chief officer of the new TechnoCrime A.R. Division while trying to reconcile her online/offline disorientation. Dore is also deprived of her former partner Taliaferro, whose fear of A.R. plus acute claustrophobia eliminate him from the unit, so her caseload keeps on growing. A complaint of brainwashing brings Dore into conflict with Japanese law enforcement online but she uses theadmit nothing technique of the A.R. netizen. Then a woman called Susannah Ell complains that she's being stalked. She claims that the stalker is her ex-husband Hastings Dervish, who has changed places with an A.I. and is using his new processing powers to ruin her life. Dervish is rich enough to live in the protected enclave on Key West and he refuses to exit A.R.to be interviewed by Dore. Contact with Goku Mura of the East/West Precint becomes inevitable if Dore wants to pursue Dervish even though she is offended by Gokus online personae. This swiftly paced, suspenseful novel propels the reader through the net in an amazing, puzzling and exciting adventure. The images conjured up are stimulating and the plot as convoluted as the online interaction. This is a stunning read for technophobes or technophiles alike. (Kirkus UK)