Red Team Blues - BookWyrm for Social Yetis

Audiobook

English language

Published by Cordoc-Co LLC.

ISBN:: 5184389278339

(2 reviews)

New York Times bestseller Cory Doctorow's Red Team Blues is a grabby next-Tuesday thriller about cryptocurrency shenanigans that will awaken you to how the world really works.

Martin Hench is 67 years old, single, and successful in a career stretching back to the beginnings of Silicon Valley. He lives and roams California in a very comfortable fully-furnished touring bus, The Unsalted Hash, that he bought years ago from a fading rock star. He knows his way around good food and fine drink. He likes intelligent women, and they like him back often enough.

Martin is a—contain your excitement—self-employed forensic accountant, a veteran of the long guerilla war between people who want to hide money, and people who want to find it. He knows computer hardware and software alike, including the ins and outs of high-end databases and the kinds of spreadsheets that are designed to conceal rather than reveal. He’s …

New York Times bestseller Cory Doctorow's Red Team Blues is a grabby next-Tuesday thriller about cryptocurrency shenanigans that will awaken you to how the world really works.

Martin Hench is 67 years old, single, and successful in a career stretching back to the beginnings of Silicon Valley. He lives and roams California in a very comfortable fully-furnished touring bus, The Unsalted Hash, that he bought years ago from a fading rock star. He knows his way around good food and fine drink. He likes intelligent women, and they like him back often enough.

Martin is a—contain your excitement—self-employed forensic accountant, a veteran of the long guerilla war between people who want to hide money, and people who want to find it. He knows computer hardware and software alike, including the ins and outs of high-end databases and the kinds of spreadsheets that are designed to conceal rather than reveal. He’s as comfortable with social media as people a quarter his age, and he’s a world-level expert on the kind of international money-laundering and shell-company chicanery used by Fortune 500 companies, mid-divorce billionaires, and international drug gangs alike. He also knows the Valley like the back of his hand, all the secret histories of charismatic company founders and Sand Hill Road VCs. Because he was there at all the beginnings. He’s not famous, except to the people who matter. He’s made some pretty powerful people happy in his time, and he’s been paid pretty well. It’s been a good life.

Now he’s been roped into a job that’s more dangerous than anything he’s ever agreed to before—and it will take every ounce of his skill to get out alive.

3 editions

writh reviewed Red Team Blues by Cory Doctorow (Martin Hench, #1)

Move over heart-throbe protagonists, an elderly accountant has arrived

5 stars

Seriously. Martin Hench is a fantastic character. There is nothing about him or his journey through this novel that I would change.

As always, Doctorow has gotten all of the details right. As an infosec professional, I appreciate that level of research and commitment to verisimilitude. This is a fast paced thriller about... financial and tech crime... I know that sounds weird, and it is even weirder that the main character is essentially an accountant, but it works so well.

I also love that he's old. He's been around the block a time or 7. He knows his shit. He's the last of a dying breed. The computing revolutionaries from MIT. He was at the cutting edge of forensic computing and accounting. But those days are long in his past. Now he's dealing with cryptocurrency. The blockchain. All that other gross crap that tech-bros have come up with. But he's …

Seriously. Martin Hench is a fantastic character. There is nothing about him or his journey through this novel that I would change.

As always, Doctorow has gotten all of the details right. As an infosec professional, I appreciate that level of research and commitment to verisimilitude. This is a fast paced thriller about... financial and tech crime... I know that sounds weird, and it is even weirder that the main character is essentially an accountant, but it works so well.

I also love that he's old. He's been around the block a time or 7. He knows his shit. He's the last of a dying breed. The computing revolutionaries from MIT. He was at the cutting edge of forensic computing and accounting. But those days are long in his past. Now he's dealing with cryptocurrency. The blockchain. All that other gross crap that tech-bros have come up with. But he's able to cut through the bullshit and use his smarts and his knowledge of tactics to beat them at their own game. It is seriously an awesome story.

There are so many deep characters in this book. A lot of them would be worthy of their own novels. None of the side characters or relationships seem fake or two dimensional.

Overall, if you like mysteries or thrillers, are into tech, or just love good character driven books, this is for you.

kieranimo reviewed Red Team Blues by Cory Doctorow (Martin Hench, #1)

Cheesy in a good way

4 stars

This was entertaining, and grabbed me more than I expected it to. I liked the story, the noir style and tone, and the tech landscape it’s set in. Sure, it’s obvious that the protagonist is a bit of an author surrogate/fantasy and that made some moments kinda … cringe… but I was hooked firmly enough that they were only minor road-bumps.