Weaponized

Memorable prose distinguishes Mennuti and Guggenheim’s excellent first novel. American Kyle West, a software genius whose algorithms linking the 9/11 terrorists impressed the U.S. intelligence community, has sought refuge in Phnom Penh, Cambodia (a city that, at night, resembles “the love child of Blade Runner and Rudyard Kipling”), after he and his boss, Christopher Chandler, become the objects of a Senate investigation. A stranger, Julian Robinson, offers a way out of life on the run by proposing that he and West swap identities, but of course things soon go awry. The authors have their fingers on the pulse of contemporary life, trenchantly observing, for example, that revolutions are outdated, because “when the revolution finally figures out what it wants, it’s already too late—the opposition has factored it into its own plan.” That sophistication extends to the plot and characters as well, making this the rare suspense novel that will genuinely surprise jaded genre readers. (July)