Picks & Shovels

LoveReading Says

Set in San Francisco in 1986, this third novel in Cory Doctorow’s inventive Martin Hench tech-thriller series covers Martin’s fascinating origin story during the dawn of a new age of crime that comes courtesy of the advent of personal computers.

In the prologue, Martin shares that “There was never any question but that I would become an engineer. So naturally, I became an accountant”, as opposed to following in his father’s footsteps. After starting out as a “prototypical MIT fuckup”, Martin becomes obsessed with learning to program a computer, and then how to hack, setting in motion building the bank of knowledge and skills he deploys through his career as a forensic accountant.

A career that kicks off in this novel when Martin is hired by a Silicon Valley start-up, and soon figures out he needs to switch sides to the competitor he’s supposed to be investigating.

Somehow managing to meld a noir-ish vibe with suspenseful sci-fi style, Picks and Shovels, and the series as a whole, represents a very different kind of thriller. It’s entertaining, and often thought-provoking, as it lays bare crime and corruption in the sneakily cut-throat spheres of finance and tech, with this third novel arguably the most enjoyable Hench novel yet. 

Reviewed by Joanne Owen
Joanne Owen’s lifelong love of reading and writing began when she was growing up in Pembrokeshire, and very much wished that witches (and Mrs Pepperpot) were real.
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