Michael Brookes

This is the beginning of a new series and it kicks off to a great start.  

Faust 2.0

Amazon.com  Faust 2.0

My review - 

A being, an entity, springs painfully into self-awareness. It inhabits, infests, the internet. It detests humanity and seeks to influence people to greed, murder and acts of total selfishness. It takes the form of an attractive female avatar and promises its victims their deepest desires. There will be a pay-back, but this will be something within their power to give. Some people are on to it, and a group of internet security specialists (and one sad hacker) manage to slow its progress. Why is it doing it, though. What is it? Why are the victims all represented on their eventual arrest, by the same very expensive lawyer, who seems to give them all the same unwanted advice?

I found this an absolutely intriguing concept and loved the name the author gave to the entity – Misty Felice. (Say it to yourself a few times. It’s cryptic but it’s a give-away!) I loved the way the entity was able to twist the desires of inadequate people and make them believe that it, she, could grant them those deepest wishes. Isn’t it what we’d all like? One or two of its victims were greedy people but most were unhappy and needy and I felt for them. Sarah Mitchell is after it though. Can she succeed? The story, though perhaps a little involved to the computer layman, was written believably and the action carried me onwards. The ending, while a satisfying ending to this story, was also a beginning. I look forward to more in this series.