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This book is a murder mystery thriller. No other way to describe it. Starts out with a rather gruesome killing and never stops. A WARNING - this is NOT a kids book! This one have some pretty graphic stuff, so if you are prone to nightmares, and blood, guts and gore are not your style, better take a pass on this one.

The story line is rather simple and straight forward. There is a lunatic out there invading peoples computers, and murdering whoever he targets. The police have, in their usual roundabout manner, determined that there may be a connection between the murders and the Internet, hacking, stalking, etc. All the bad things our parents warn us about whenever we go online.

Wyatt Gilette is in jail. Seems he hacked into a DOD system and the authorities alledge that he messed with some of their top secret, super secure toys. He says he didn't but no one can prove he did or didn't. The way the law works these days, he is in jail, and a very unhappy camper - no internet! Lucky for Wyatt, Frank Bishop, a very street smart detective, needs help solving the most recent murder. Wyatt is a captive audience sitting in jail, and Bishop decides it might just help to have a hacker catch the hacker/murderer.

When Bishop gets Gillette out of jail, temporarily, the fun starts. Throughout the entire book, the police keep trying to get Wyatt back in jail, but he manages, sometime with, and sometimes without, Bishop's help, to stay out of the slammer. Good for the cops, bad for the killer.

The bad guy is one really nasty dude. Phate (his web identity) is a master hacker. Between Gilette and Phate, we are drawn into the world of hackers, computer viruses, programming tricks and traps, chat rooms, and alot of other places I don't think I want to visit. Fortunately, being very untechnically inclined, Jeffrey Deaver wrote the book so even a dummy like me could understand most of the technical stuff. Alot of it did go over my head, but in retrospect, I think I also learned some stuff.

One of Deaver's claims to fame in his murder mystery writings, is the depth he gives to his characters, as well as the very real possibility that what he writes about could really happen. These guys, good and bad, are all pretty scary. The individual characters' motivations, actions and reactions are never predictible. Just when you think you have it all figured out, you find out you were so off base, you might have to go back and reread a few pages. I didn't think Deaver could top Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs, but the combination of Bishop and Gilette give them a run for the money. I will be very interested to see if Jeffrey Deaver continues on with them as recurring characters in forthcoming books. I will definitely buy them if he writes them.

This book has more darn twists and turns and surprises than you can shake a stick at. It is definitely one of those books you buy on a Friday afteroon and lock yourself in the house with the phone off the hook till Sunday night. It is a page turning, can't put it down, OMG - I can't believe he wrote that! - kind of book that will keep the lights on way past midnight.

Title: The Blue Nowhere
Author: Jeffrey Deaver
Review by: CL7 Kali D'or