Another Cyber-Crime Thriller

Map of the (then) East German Island of Ruegen, setting of World of Mirrors

You might want to take a look at World of Mirrors, authored by Judith Copek.  Published as both a trade paperback and an ebook, World of Mirrors is another cybercrime thriller from Wings ePress. 

World of Mirrors is set on an island off the Baltic coast in the former DDR, and the year is 1990, the “time of the turn.” The Berlin wall has crumbled, but Germany is not yet reunified.   Against the seductive decadence of an old resort with its classic sailboats, nude beaches and crumbling casinos, Zara Gray, a consultant to high tech firms, and T.K. Drummond, a man who finds people and fixes situations, must track down an American software thief before he can fence a stolen copy of his company’s bleeding-edge new software.

 Zara narrates the story as she fights the fear that their mission is jinxed from the beginning.  Bad decisions and chilling discoveries threaten to sabotage the project.  The situation further unravels during a sailing weekend, and turns deadly at a Midsummer Festival.  Trapped in a matrix of betrayal, Zara and T.K. must rely on two unlikely people to help them escape the island and in a final, desperate gambit to save the software, Zara must perform her own dangerous treachery.  

There is plenty of suspense and cyber-derring-do (isn't that the best kind)? and a look at East Germany the year after the wall came down, a  World of Mirrors in the words of Marcus Wolf, the former East German spymaster.  Available from the publisher or Amazon.  

E-ISBN:                          978-1-61309-073-2

POD-ISBN:                     978-1-61309-929-2   1613099290  (ASIS) 

    

Cyberattacks Increase in U.S.

Targeting our infrastructure, cyberattacks against the U. S. have risen 17-fold in the past few years (2009-2011).  Read all about it here:  Cyberattacks on Rise in U.S.


Cyberattacks are the theme, framing the plot in The Shadow Warriors, first pubbed in 2001.  Was I ahead of the curve or not?  Falling on deaf ears, of course.  Maybe I should have sent the NSA and the White House copies of the book?  Will it become a best seller if the attacks are not thwarted on some occasion?  I would not wish that on anyone, the attacks, that is, not becoming a best seller.  


I did scads of research, and considered myself almost an expert at one time.  A few years ago I threw out all my  carefully collected documents because everything was so out of date.  


BTW, I had no idea that WE created Stuxnet.  Is that a fact?  I read it recently, maybe in Wired Magazine, my go-to place for cyber lore.  We haven't acknowledged it, if true.  What would the Skunkworks think?  Writing my techno-thriller was such fun.  Along with World of Mirrors which had a different kind of technology at its heart.   It  would be fun to be a mouse in the wainstcotting (assuming there might be wainscotting) at the Aspen Institute. 

Danger Room Blog

I thought that my readers who are also technology geeks might  enjoy knowing about Wired Magazine's blog, Danger Room.  It pays to keep informed about practically everything these days.   

Here is the link.Danger Room.  Is has sort of dystopian ring, doesn't it?

 BTW,  if you're up for international intrigue and technological history, my novel, World of Mirrors is out.   It can be ordered from the publisher's web site in print or as an ebook.  Still waiting for Bowker to  register the ISBN.  Not everything happens quickly in e-publishing.  Here is the link to the novel, and you can find out whether it's your cuppa tea.  Link to World of Mirrors publisher

The story is set on an island off the Baltic coast in the former DDR, and the year is 1990, the “time of the turn.” The Berlin wall has crumbled, but Germany is not yet reunified.   Against the seductive decadence of an old resort with its classic sailboats, nude beaches and crumbling casinos, Zara Gray, a consultant to high tech firms, and T.K. Drummond, a man who finds people and fixes situations, must track down an American software thief before he can fence a stolen copy of his company’s bleeding-edge new software.

Zara narrates the story as she fights the fear that their mission is jinxed from the beginning.  Bad decisions and chilling discoveries threaten to sabotage the project.  The situation further unravels during a sailing weekend, and turns deadly at a Midsummer Festival.  Trapped in a matrix of betrayal, Zara and T.K. must rely on two unlikely people to help them escape the island and in a final, desperate gambit to save the software, Zara must perform her own dangerous treachery.    

Kinda like a caper with an international cast of miscreants.  :)    

World of Mirrors

At long last, I have a new novel coming out. next month.  No date yet. 

World of Mirrors is set on an island off the Baltic coast in the former DDR, and the year is 1990, the “time of the turn.” The Berlin wall has crumbled, but Germany is not yet reunified.   Against the seductive decadence of an old resort with its classic sailboats, nude beaches and crumbling casinos, Zara Gray, a consultant to high tech firms, and T.K. Drummond, a man who finds people and fixes situations, must track down an American software thief before he can fence a stolen copy of his company’s bleeding-edge new software.

 Zara narrates the story as she fights the fear that their mission is jinxed from the beginning.  Bad decisions and chilling discoveries threaten to sabotage the project.  The situation further unravels during a sailing weekend, and turns deadly at a Midsummer Festival.  Trapped in a matrix of betrayal, Zara and T.K. must rely on two unlikely people to help them escape the island and in a final, desperate gambit to save the software, Zara must perform her own dangerous treachery.       

Like The Shadow Warriors,  technology drives the plot.  There is no Infowar, but there are lots of international bad guys who want to get their grubby hands on this intelligent software.  The Americans are by no means the good guys either.  No one come out unscathed.  Sort of like real life!  

As the details become available, I'll post them for you.   

My Research for The World of Mirrors

I have always hoped that my research would inform and enrich this novel.  Here is what I read.  I'm hoping the publisher will take the novel. 

For an author, nothing beats firsthand visits and interviews, but steeping myself in the background and history of the period were also of prime importance and will, I hope, inform the writing in World of Mirrors.

Childers, Erskine, The Riddle of the Sands, New York, Dover Publications, 1976

Dodds, Dina and Allen-Thompson, Pam, editors.  The Wall in My Backyard, East German Women in Transition, Amherst, University of Massachusetts Press, 1994

Ellis, William S., Germany —The Morning After, National Geographic, Vol. 180. No. 3, September 1991, 2 – 41.

Garton Ash, Timothy, The Magic Lantern, New York, Vintage Books, 1990

Garton Ash, Timothy, The File, A Personal History, New York, Random House, 1997

Kramer, Jane, The Politics of Memory, Looking for Germany in the New Germany, New York, Randon House,

Köhlers Flotten-Kalendar 1994, Das deutsche Jahrbuch der Seefahrt, Herford, Koehlers Verlaggesellschaft, 1994

Markovits, Inge, Impefect Justic, An East-West German Diary, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995

Müller, Christine & Bodo, Über Die Ostsee In Die Feiheit,  Bielefeld, Delius Klasing Verlag, 1996

Philipsen, Dirk, We Were the People, Voices From East German’s Revolutionary Autumn of 1989, Durham, Duke University Press, 1993

Schneider.Peter, The German Comedy, Scenes of Life After the Wall, New York, Farrar Straus Giroux, 1991

Vesilind, Priit J., The Baltic: Area of Power, National Geographic, Vol. 175, No. 5, May, 1989, 602- 635.

Von Der Porten, Edward, The Hanseatic League, Europe’s First Common Market, National Geographic, Vol. 186, No. 4, October, 1994, 56 –79. 

Winkler, Hermann, Zeesboote, Rostok, Hinstorff, 1990

Wolf, Christa, The Author’s Dimension, Selected Essays, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1993

Wolf, Christa, What Remains & Other Stories, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1993

Wolf, Marcus Man Without A Face, The Autobiography of Communism’s Greatest Spymaster, New York, Random House, 1997

Marcus Wolf's autobiography provided the title, World of Mirrors.  Peter Schneider provided information about the North Vietnamese and the Wall dogs.  Timothy Garten Ash had a lot of interesting things to say about the Stasi and the Stasi files.  I learned so much researching this novel.  If you think this book sounds interesting,  you will also like The Shadow Warriors which is actually available.  World of Mirrors, soon, I hope.