The Bezzle
Published on 2. January 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
256 pages
978-1-80454-781-6 (ISBN)
Description
Money-laundering, cyber-knavery and shell-company chicanery: Marty Hench is an expert in them all. He's Silicon Valley's most accomplished forensic accountant and well versed in the devious ways of Fortune 500s, divorcing oligarchs, and international drug cartels alike (and there's more crossover than you might imagine).
Cory Doctorow's hard-charging, read-in-one-sitting, techno take on the classic PI pulp novel.
**
It's 2006, and Marty Hench is at the top of his game as a self-employed forensic accountant, a veteran of the long guerrilla war between the people who want to hide money and the people who want to find it.
He spends his downtime holidaying on Catalina Island, where scenic, imported bison wander the bluffs and frozen, reheated fast food burgers cost $25. (Wait, what?)
When, during one vacation, Marty disrupts a seemingly innocuous scheme, he has no idea he's kicked off a chain of events that will overtake the next decade of his life.
Because he's made his most dangerous mistake yet. He's trespassed into the playgrounds of the ultra-wealthy and identified their latest target: California's Department of Corrections, who manage the state's prison system.
Secure in the knowledge that they're living behind far too many firewalls to be identified, the tycoons have hundreds of thousands of prisoners at their mercy, and the potential of millions of pounds to make off them.
But now, Marty is about to ruin their fun...
A seething rebuke of the privatized prison system that delves deeply into the arcane and baroque financial chicanery involved in the 2008 financial crash, The Bezzle is a red-hot follow up to Red Team Blues.
Cory Doctorow's hard-charging, read-in-one-sitting, techno take on the classic PI pulp novel.
**
It's 2006, and Marty Hench is at the top of his game as a self-employed forensic accountant, a veteran of the long guerrilla war between the people who want to hide money and the people who want to find it.
He spends his downtime holidaying on Catalina Island, where scenic, imported bison wander the bluffs and frozen, reheated fast food burgers cost $25. (Wait, what?)
When, during one vacation, Marty disrupts a seemingly innocuous scheme, he has no idea he's kicked off a chain of events that will overtake the next decade of his life.
Because he's made his most dangerous mistake yet. He's trespassed into the playgrounds of the ultra-wealthy and identified their latest target: California's Department of Corrections, who manage the state's prison system.
Secure in the knowledge that they're living behind far too many firewalls to be identified, the tycoons have hundreds of thousands of prisoners at their mercy, and the potential of millions of pounds to make off them.
But now, Marty is about to ruin their fun...
A seething rebuke of the privatized prison system that delves deeply into the arcane and baroque financial chicanery involved in the 2008 financial crash, The Bezzle is a red-hot follow up to Red Team Blues.
Reviews / Votes
Righteously satisfying...A fascinating tale of financial skullduggery, long cons, and the delivery of ice-cold revenge * Booklist * Robert Heinlein was always known...as The Man Who Knew How the World Worked. Doctorow delivers the same sense of putting yourself in the hands of a fellow who has peered behind Oz's curtain. When he fills you in lucidly about some arcane bit of economics or computer tech or social media scam, you feel, first, that you understand it completely and, second, that you can trust Doctorow's analysis and insights * Locus * [A] thoroughly enjoyable cybercrime novels where some of the laughter comes from true life. But is it science fiction? Well, it certainly sends a science-fictional message about the dangers of the internet. * SF Crowsnest * 'A fast-paced, voraciously readable thriller that lays bare the financial rot at the core of Silicon Valley's high-minded rhetoric of innovation.' - Roger McNamee, author of Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe'I showed up for the high-tech ideas and stayed for the whodunit. You don't need to be a techie to love Red Team Blues - you just need to be fascinated about what the future might hold.' - A. G. Riddle, author of Lost in Time
'Well, talk about timely. In the wake of the late-2022 collapse of cryptocurrency comes this novel about a forensic accountant who's hired to work a case involving electronic theft of cryptocurrency... Doctorow's novels are always feasts for the imagination and the intellect, and this one is no exception: it's jam-packed with cutting-edge ideas about cybersecurity and crypto, and its near-future world is lovingly detailed and completely believable.' - BookList
'Cory Doctorow's fiction is a vector through which he offers incisive commentary on technology and society, and Red Team Blues is no exception. Through the eyes of a grizzled forensic accountant, we're forced to question preconceived ideas around benevolent billionaires, honorable state authorities, and impenetrable security. Red Team Blues earns its spot in the top echelon of thriller novels that give you no choice but to devour them in one sitting, but leave you thinking long after you turn the last page.' -- Molly White An excellent encapsulation of Doctorow's term "enshittification"... technical storytelling at its finest. We need more writers like Cory Doctorow * GeekDad *
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Dimensions
Height: 197 mm
Width: 128 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
188 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-80454-781-6 (9781804547816)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Cory Doctorow
The Bezzle
E-Book
02/2024
1st Edition
Head of Zeus -- an AdAstra Book
€9.49
Available for download
Person
Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist and journalist. He is the author of many books, most recently The Lost Cause, a solarpunk science fiction novel of hope amidst the climate emergency. His most recent nonfiction book is The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation, a Big Tech disassembly manual. Other recent books include Red Team Blues, a science fiction crime thriller; Chokepoint Capitalism, nonfiction about monopoly and creative labor markets; the Little Brother series for young adults; In Real Life, a graphic novel; and the picture book Poesy The Monster Slayer. In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.