Another excellent novel by this great author - very hard to put down once you start.
Again, a focus on issues in modern behind-the-scenes international politics. This time the plot is built around islamic terrorism and terrorist funding.
The real issue in the book is how misled we can be by being overly reliant, or exclusively reliant, on technology for our information and understanding of the world. In a way it ties into a larger theme of how technology dehumanizes society and our relations with people. How, without real human contact, without human sources (to use the spy analogy) it is much easier to fit the world into our preconceived notions of how things should be, into our stereotypes and self-serving, self-agrandizing and self-mythologizing narratives (hate that word). And to trample others, miss opportunities, and lose all subtle shading. Which ties into the theme of the other two books I have been reading lately, The Big Disconnect and Life Inc.. This is a theme that Ian Rankin has also begun to explore in some of his more recent work.
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