This Side of Judgment

Outside a town in Montana fifty years from now, a rancher finds the nude body of a woman in the snow. Terribly mutilated. In plain sight, too, as if it was meant to be discovered. At the same time a computer intrusion occurred at the local bank - sloppy, as if the intruder didn't care if he was detected. The police see no connection... but in Washington one person does: Ross Bohlen, agent for COSSF, the Computer Subversion Strike Force. He thinks a chiphead is responsible. Bohlen's boss assured Congress and the press that the chipheads (cybernetically enhanced people) are a thing of the past - that they have all been killed, or went insane and killed themselves. Bohlen knows better.

In his debut novel, J. R. Dunn gives the Frankenstein story a twist that is both high tech and poetic, as he tells of three men - a madman drunk on power, a hunter weary of bloodshed, and a protector who can no longer protect - all players in a vast, violent, and corrupt game. A gripping, thought provoking thriller.