Zer0es

Techno-thriller, very quick read. A group of malcontents (they settle on the name "Zer0es" to reflect that) is brought in and blackmailed by a shadowy government agency to hack. Some great characters here, motivations and personalities quite different. A lot of fun to read.

The story is hard sci-fi, or perhaps cyberpunk, until about half way through. The bizarre turn it takes throws me for a loop, and my disbelief of that steals one star from the rating. In hindsight, I wish the author had planted hints of it early on - new medical research, breakthroughs in man machine interface, etc.

Agent Hollis Copper is outside the group, responsible at first for helping compose the team and then mostly shunted to the side as they do their work. The author has another book with that same character (Invasive) which is presumably in the same universe - but I am not sure if it is a sequel. Needless to say I will be checking it out in the new year.