Invasion of Privacy by Christopher Reich

Published by Doubleday on June 16, 2015

Invasion of Privacy is an old-fashioned conspiracy thriller that is updated with modern technology. In the past, the bad guys had to break into the good guy's home to manually erase answering machine messages or steal compromising photographs. These days, they remotely erase text messages and photographs from smart phones.

Joe Grant is an FBI agent who specializes in electronic surveillance. He is in Austin, working on Operation Semaphore, which has something to do with a wealthy and somewhat batty CEO named Ian Prince and a supercomputer called Titan. As the operation goes sideways during a meeting with an informant, Joe manages to call his wife, Mary, and leaves her a message that the FBI would prefer she didn't have. Why he leaves a cryptic voicemail for Mary instead of, for example, calling someone with a gun who might be able to help him is something I never quite understood.

When the message disappears from her phone, Mary understands that she can't trust the FBI. She is one of two individuals who want to get past the FBI's cover-up. The other is a drunken ex-journalist named Tank. The drunk who manages to pull himself together long enough to do battle against the forces of evil is a stock character in Thrillerworld. Tank is likable but far from unique.

Every family in Thrillerworld has a kid who happens to a superhacker. Mary's daughter Jessie fills that role in Invasion of Privacy. She is such a trite addition to the story that she's really a subtraction from it. Her contribution (apart from teenage angst) consists of jetting off to a hacker's convention to engage in activities that are both predictable and impossible to believe.

Too much of Invasion of Privacy has the familiarity of a thriller written on autopilot. Christopher Reich made his reputation as an author of complex financial thrillers, but Invasion of Privacy only gives a passing nod to the world of finance while focusing on chase scenes, high-tech surveillance, stereotypical hackers, and more chase scenes.

In addition, too much of Invasion of Privacy is contrived. The cryptic message Joe leaves for Mary is so cryptic that he could not possibly have expected Mary to figure it out -- except she does because otherwise, the plot would grind to a halt. No FBI agent would take valuable evidence of a criminal investigation home and leave it in a "gadget box" but Joe does because if he didn't, the plot would grind to a halt.

Here's what's really shocking: I enjoyed reading Invasion of Privacy even while I was rolling my eyes. The ending is something of an anti-climax but it's reasonably satisfying. The story moves quickly which, given its lack of depth or complexity, is a good thing. The characters are shallow but likable. Invasion of Privacy is an undemanding, predictable novel but it's fun. Still, I expected more from Reich.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

The Prince of Risk by Christopher Reich

Published by Doubleday on December 3, 2013

A conspiracy is afoot and the only (good) people who know about it are the Secretary of the Treasury, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and the CEO of the New York Stock Exchange. Until they die. Just before their car explodes on the White House lawn, the head of the NYSE texts the word Palantir to his estranged son, hedge fund master Bobby Astor, whose ex-wife, Alex Forza, happens to be an FBI agent. Astor has no idea what Palantir means, but he is determined to find out. The conspirators, of course, are aware of the text, knowledge that puts Astor's life in peril. In the meantime, Astor has made a bet that Chinese currency will be devalued, a gamble that places him in financial peril, to the extent of losing 400 million dollars.

Global conspiracies are plentiful and far-reaching in the word of thrillers. This one involves electronic surveillance of 57,000 influential people (mostly in government and business). Impressive but credible, given the resources of the conspiracy's backers. Is the conspiracy farfetched? In some respects, yes, but no more farfetched than is common in modern thrillers. Apart from one scene at the end, nothing about the story made me unwilling to suspend my disbelief, in part because Reich includes convincing detail about the conspiracy's design. Of course, a reader who is more knowledgeable about software or the mechanics of Wall Street financial transactions might not be as easily convinced as I was. And even to the extent that I was unconvinced, the story is so fun that I easily overcame my skepticism.

The story features -- wait for it -- a warrior monk. I have to admit that I wasn't expecting a warrior monk to show up on Wall Street, but Reich somehow makes it work. In fact, Reich makes a lot of things work together in this entertaining joinder of a financial thriller with an international conspiracy thriller. He builds tension as several storylines weave together and he advances the plot at a steady pace. His characters are flawed in ways that make them interesting but they never become thoroughly unlikable. Alex's characterization as a self-righteous a-hole is realistic, even if the prayers she says while standing before a portrait of J. Edgar Hoover are a little over-the-top. At the same time, these are the conventional characters of genre fiction, developed without richness or texture. That's one of the novel's only weakness, and it's a small one given that this is a plot-driven story. The other, again small, is that the plot features few surprises (other than the appearance of a warrior monk), but I enjoyed it all the same.

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