Review: Going Zero by Anthony McCarten

Thrillers are generally too thrilling for me but I have a really hard time giving books as Christmas presents without checking them out myself so if I think there's any chance I can safely read a book (I'm a coward who suffers from nightmares so the bar is fairly high--or is it low?), I will before I gift it. Anthony McCarten's Going Zero sounded thrilling but not over the top scary thrilling so I decided to risk it. And let me tell you, it was an adrenaline ride but it turned out to be terrifying and makes me want to move into the woods far from any technology (including this computer)! I think my son will love it for sure.

The government and a tech company have teamed up to beta test some incredibly sophisticated spyware called Fusion. They've recruited 10 people, 5 cyber security experts and 5 regular citizens, to try and go off the grid, to evade capture for 30 days. If the Fusion team captures all 10 people in that 30 days, the CIA will partner with them on bringing this technology into the government's surveillance arsenal. If the recruits stay at large, they will receive $3 million untaxed dollars. Tech founder Cy Baxter has a very personal reason for wanting to prove his technology will work and he's excited to show off all it can do in preventing criminals from hiding and perpetrating their evil, certain that the advanced surveillance and intrusions into citizens' private lives is both worth the cost to freedom that might occur and that the new lack of privacy will not actually be lamented by anyone. Boston librarian Kaitlyn Day is one of the regular people recruited to "go zero." Once the project is underway, she and her nine fellow subjects have a two-hour head start to disappear off the grid before the Fusion people start tracking them. In theory she should be one of the first, if not the first person picked up. But Kaitlyn has far more riding on staying at liberty than anyone, including the reader, knows. Thus commences a very high-tech cat and mouse game.

This is a work of fiction. (Maybe.) The amount of tracking that a tech company can already do on everyday people (do you carry a cell phone with you, do you shop in stores with theft prevention videos, do you drive down roads with traffic cameras, and more) is complex enough but what McCarten has described here goes beyond that without ever straying out of a very believable realm. And that is truly terrifying. The story is more than just the chase though, eventually delving into Kaitlyn's reason for joining the test, Baxter and his partner/girlfriend's reason for developing Fusion in the first place, the perils and pitfalls that such extensive, personal information would give the government, not to mention a private company, and into Baxter's very character and moral code. Are we going to surveil our own citizens like Russia and China? Are we already doing so without civilian knowledge? What do we have to lose or gain from such? This novel asks those questions within the framework of a very suspenseful story. Kaitlyn remains an enigma for a much longer time in the novel than Cy does and while the other characters, both the others "gone zero" and the government and Fusion employees, in the novel provide interesting side notes, none of them are dwelt on for very long. The book is fast-paced and a one sitting read and it will certainly make you reconsider the vast amounts of personal information you willingly hand over to the government and private entities daily even as you wonder what they've collected that you haven't consented to. Recommended for thriller readers and others who are willing to sacrifice some sleep over the scary implications for our own world.