Dangerous Data

by Adam Lury & Simon Gibson

Corgi Books

Reviewed by Annette Gisby, author of Silent Screams

You have a credit card. A bank account. An internet service account. You shop on the web, you pay for dinner in a restaurant with your credit card. You think nothing of it. But what if someone was watching you? Watching your data, that is.

To Dogg, Data Detective, that's what you are. Data to be sorted and sifted into some sort of whole. To build a picture of you with nothing more to go on than you're spending habits, your magazine subscriptions, shopping surveys, your phone calls. The information is all there, if you know where to look and Dogg knows, oh yes, he knows everything about you.

His new client wants some information on the people who live at a certain flat, for a fee he will tell you anything you want to know. How much their phone bill was, who they called, which travel agent they used to book that spur of the moment trip to Venice, whether or not they were alone.

It's an interesting concept for a thriller. On one page you are given a list of the data that Dogg discovers, and on the next, how he pieces it together to form the picture of the person. He isn't interested in the why, he just deals with the when and the who, facts, data.

There are lies within lies, betrayal, deceipt and murder.

It's a very fast moving book and gets you thinking. How likely is it that this could really happen? Maybe it's happening right now. That email you sent and deleted, where did it go? Dogg knows, and if someone pays him, he can find it for you, or them... That's the question, isn't it?

Do you really want to know?

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