Reamde

Stephenson (Anathem), the master of meandering, inconclusive plots, delivers a sprawling thriller that shows him in complete control of his story, regardless of the many digressions and a host of characters. Zula Forthrast’s unfortunate taste in boyfriends catapults her into a breakneck adventure spanning two continents and several increasingly dangerous criminal gangs. What looks like a chance to make a quick buck turns sour when the Russian mafia discover that Zula’s conniving boyfriend, Peter, inadvertently handed their representative a virus-infected thumb drive that holds all of the mafia’s encrypted data. Peter and Zula find themselves prisoners of the menacing and desperate Ivanov and dragged to Xiamen, China, in a last-ditch effort to confront the hackers responsible before Ivanov’s bosses learn what has happened. Complications ensue when the gangsters raid an apartment belonging not to the rather hapless hackers but instead to the notorious terrorist Abdallah Jones and his well-armed compatriots, into whose hands Zula falls. The plot snowballs from there, toward a violent conclusion near the U.S.-Canadian border. Author tour. (Oct.)