Invasion of Privacy

Within hours of Austin-based FBI special agent Joe Grant’s murder, his widow, Mary, and two daughters find themselves fighting for their own lives in this absorbing, though intensely creepy, cyber thriller from Thriller Award–winner Reich (The Prince of Risk). Troubled by the Bureau’s stonewalling over the circumstances of Joe’s death, as well as a red-flag final voice mail Joe left her that mysteriously vanished, Mary starts pressing for answers—making her a problem for the same powerful forces who silenced her husband, chief among them megalomaniac Internet magnate Ian Prince. It’s anything but a fair fight, or a believable one. Furthermore, as much as readers will want to root for the feisty homemaker and her principal allies—her 15-year-old daughter, Jessie, a fierce hacker, and alcoholic (but hunky) reporter Tank Potter—some may not be game to spend so much time with the morally bereft Prince and his skin-crawling henchmen, including a pedophile with designs on Mary’s cancer-stricken 11-year-old daughter, Grace. Agent: Richard Pine, Inkwell Management. (June)