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Picks and Shovels

"This third Martin Hench novel explores the birth of Silicon Valley through the entertaining origin story of its inimitable protagonist."

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This title will be released on 16/01/2025. Pre-order now.

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LoveReading Says

LoveReading Says

Set in San Francisco in 1986, this third novel in Cory Doctorow’s inventive Martin Hench tech-thriller series covers Martin’s fascinating origin story during the dawn of a new age of crime that comes courtesy of the advent of personal computers.

In the prologue, Martin shares that “There was never any question but that I would become an engineer. So naturally, I became an accountant”, as opposed to following in his father’s footsteps. After starting out as a “prototypical MIT fuckup”, Martin becomes obsessed with learning to program a computer, and then how to hack, setting in motion building the bank of knowledge and skills he deploys through his career as a forensic accountant. A career that kicks off in this novel when Martin is hired by a Silicon Valley start-up, and soon figures out he needs to switch sides to the competitor he’s supposed to be investigating.

Somehow managing to meld a noir-ish vibe with suspenseful sci-fi style, Picks and Shovels, and the series as a whole, represents a very different kind of thriller. It’s entertaining, and often thought-provoking, as it lays bare crime and corruption in the sneakily cut-throat spheres of finance and tech, with this third novel arguably the most enjoyable Hench novel yet. 

Joanne Owen

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Primary Genre Thriller and Suspense
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