Constant Fear by Daniel Palmer

Constant Fear
Daniel Palmer
Fiction P182c

In Daniel Palmer’s electrifying, brilliantly plotted new thriller, a private school campus becomes a battleground as a desperate father takes on a terrifying enemy….

When Jake Dent’s dreams of baseball glory fell apart in a drunk-driving incident, his marriage did too. In those dark days, a popular survivalist blog helped to restore Jake’s sense of control. He’s become an avid Doomsday Prepper, raising his diabetic son, Andy, to be ready for any sudden catastrophe.

Andy, now a student at the prestigious Pepperell Academy where Jake works as a custodian, has a secret—he’s part of a computer club that redistributes money from the obscenely wealthy to the needy. Usually, their targets don’t even realize they’ve been hacked. But this time, they’ve stolen from the wrong people: a vicious drug cartel that is coming to get its money back…

Staging a chemical truck spill as a distraction, the cartel infiltrates the Academy, taking Andy and his friends hostage one by one. Jake, hidden inside the school’s abandoned tunnels, knows that soon the killing will start. With his training, and a stockpile of weapons and supplies, he’s the last, best hope these students—including his son—have of getting out alive. But survival is no longer an abstract concept. It’s a violent, brutal struggle that will test Jake to the limit, where there are no rules and no second chances…

(from Publisher)

The Eye of Minds

The Eye of Minds
James Dashner
Fiction D26e

Michael is a gamer. And like most gamers, he almost spends more time on the VirtNet than in the actual world. The VirtNet offers total mind and body immersion, and it's addictive.  Thanks to technology, anyone with enough money can experience fantasy worlds, risk their life without the chance of death, or just hang around with Virt-friends.  And the more hacking skills you have, the more fun.  Why bother following the rules when most of them are dumb, anyway?

But some rules were made for a reason. Some technology is too dangerous to fool with. And recent reports claim that one gamer is going beyond what any gamer has done before: he's holding players hostage inside the VirtNet.  The effects are horrific--the hostages have all been declared brain-dead.  Yet the gamer's motives are a mystery.

The government knows that to catch a hacker, you need a hacker.

And they’ve been watching Michael. They want him on their team.  But the risk is enormous.  If he accepts their challenge, Michael will need to go off the VirtNet grid.  There are back alleys and corners in the system human eyes have never seen and predators he can't even fathom--and there's the possibility that the line between game and reality will be blurred forever.

(From publisher.)

Cress

Cress
Marissa Meyer
Fiction M575cr

In this third book in Marissa Meyer's bestselling Lunar Chronicles series, Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, now with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together, they’re plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and prevent her army from invading Earth.

Their best hope lies with Cress, a girl trapped on a satellite since childhood who’s only ever had her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker. Unfortunately, she’s being forced to work for Queen Levana, and she’s just received orders to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice.

When a daring rescue of Cress goes awry, the group is splintered. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a higher price than she’d ever expected. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing prevent her marriage to Emperor Kai, especially the cyborg mechanic. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only hope the world has.

(From publisher.)

Uncaged

Uncaged (The Singular Menace: Book 1)
John Sandford and Michele Cook
Fiction Sa45s

Shay Remby arrives in Hollywood with $58 and a handmade knife, searching for her brother, Odin.

Odin’s a brilliant hacker but a bit of a loose cannon. He and a group of radical animal-rights activists hit a Singular Corp. research lab in Eugene, Oregon. The raid was a disaster, but Odin escaped with a set of highly encrypted flash drives and a post-surgical dog.

When Shay gets a frantic 3 a.m. phone call from Odin—talking about evidence of unspeakable experiments, and a ruthless corporation, and how he must hide—she’s concerned. When she gets a menacing visit from Singular’s security team, she knows: her brother’s a dead man walking.

What Singular doesn’t know—yet—is that 16-year-old Shay is every bit as ruthless as their security force, and she will burn Singular to the ground, if that’s what it takes to save her brother.

(From publisher.)

Man Made Boy

Man Made Boy
Jon Skovron
Fiction Sk58m

Sixteen-year-old Boy’s never left home.  When you’re the son of Frankenstein’s monster and the Bride, it’s tough to go out in public, unless you want to draw the attention of a torch-wielding mob.  And since Boy and his family live in a secret enclave of monsters hidden under Times Square, it’s important they maintain a low profile.

 

Boy’s only interactions with the world are through the Internet, where he’s a hacker extraordinaire who can hide his hulking body and stitched-together face behind a layer of code.  When conflict erupts at home, Boy runs away and embarks on a cross-country road trip with the granddaughters of Jekyll and Hyde, who introduce him to malls and diners, love and heartbreak. But no matter how far Boy runs, he can’t escape his demons—both literal and figurative—until he faces his family once more.

 

This hilarious, romantic, and wildly imaginative tale redefines what it means to be a monster—and a man.

(From publisher.)