The Hanged Man's Song (Kidd)
by John Sandford
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Book Summary Information
Author: John SandfordEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-09-28
ISBN: 042519910X
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Berkley
Book Reviews of The Hanged Man's Song (Kidd)
Book Review: It Was Nice To Meet The Author -- John Sandford
Summary: 5 Stars
The Hanged Man's Song, $7.99 US, written by #1 New York Times bestselling author John Sanford, is told in twenty-one exciting chapters. Those of you not familiar with this author should be made aware that this particular novel is the fourth and latest in a minor series known as The Kidd Novels. The writer is more well-known, however, for his major series The Prey Novels, of which there are fourteen titles concerning Minnesota cop Lucas Davenport. Frankly though, I think Sandford should more aggressively concentrate on fleshing out his anti-hero Kidd -- an accomplished artist, 1337 hacker, and career criminal who lives by a moral code of his own making.
How many books will be generated by The Kidd Novels? That depends entirely on how many different major arcana cards there are in a standard Rider-Waite tarot deck. All the books in this series happen to be named after tarot cards. An interesting enough premise if you think about it.
How shall I begin? Sandford drops us right into the action. Within the first few pages, a major character is killed in the doorway of his Mississippi home -- his skull bashed in horrifically. Of course, this isn't just any person either. This just happened to be wheelchair-bound Bobby Fields, a super hacker with the notoriety of a Kevin Mitnick, and the reputation of a digital Robin Hood. Fields was Kidd's online accomplice in a hacking ring. A quick recon of the Fields residence turns up no computer, and this alarms Kidd. Kidd knows what kind of information is likely kept on Bobby's IBM -- the kind that could incriminate him and others in the ring! So now he's on a mission -- to recover Bobby's laptop, dispose of any incendiary data, and gain some form of justice for his murdered pal.
After Kidd and his friend John examine the crime scene, they visit a nearby E-Z Way, buy some rudimentary supplies, and improvise a clever way to draw the FBI into the investigation. Then they monitor the FBI's inquiry into who murdered Bobby, through an electronic back door. Curious to note, their "off the shelf" plan later creates some havoc when some of the data from Bobby's stolen laptop is deciphered and someone starts to leak it out selectively to the cable news networks. One leak destroys the career of the Head of the NSA. Another leak implicates the U.S. government in releasing a fatal virus, called the Norwalk Virus, on cruise ships in California. Bobby's laptop holds a myriad of other such secrets.
Carp is the nemesis here -- Jimmy James Carp to be exact. He's a fired thirty-something tech support guy from something called the DDC Working Group, which is connected to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Carp was snooping around the residence of Bobby's caretaker, Thomas Baird. Kidd and his friend John were able to pick up Carp's trail through both good old-fashioned footwork and a little creative networking with friends. Before they realize they've stumbled upon him though, he's firing a pistol at them repeatedly while making a clean getaway in a Carolla from a mobile home park in Slidell, Louisiana.
Kidd and John are joined by LuEllen, then the trio have an additional problem to deal with after that Slidell shootout. They have to protect an impoverished girl, age 13, that can connect Jimmy James Carp to Bobby. So they travel to New Orleans to find Rachel Willowby before Jimmy James Carp does. Rachel has been abandoned by her mother, and the girl has been sneaking in and out of her mostly empty apartment. The girl is one of Bobby's hacker proteges, and she knows too much for her age. Kidd and his crew arrive just a little too late, because Carp is already there, and then he shoots John in the triceps only to flee once again.
Ergo, John is then taken out of the equation. The four retreat to John's hometown of Longstreet, Mississippi to deal with his arm wound, where he's then castigated by his wife Marvel, and basically told that he can't pursue Carp any further. John and Marvel agree to "take in" Rachel Willowby until her mother can be found. Two days later, Kidd and LuEllen head for Washington D.C., because that's where Carp's credit card usage leads to. As they travel to D.C., more secrets from Bobby's laptop are leaked to the press, the latest incident resulting in the destruction of the career of the Senator from Illinois.
Right about the time Kidd and LuEllen have Carp's D.C. apartment staked out, they briefly cross the path of two government agents that almost discovered them inside Carp's mobile home in Slidell. Kidd and LuEllen had burgled that place to find out more about whom they were pursuing. One of the two agents tracking Carp was black, one was white. Just like John and Kidd were. Carp doesn't realize that two distinct sets of people are pursuing him, and he kills the two government agents at the door of his apartment, and on the door stoop and sidewalk on the street down below. Right in front of Kidd and LuEllen.
Kidd and LuEllen end up at a French cafe in Georgetown later that evening, after getting over the trauma of the brazen daylight execution they had witnessed near Carp's Meridian Park apartment. They discuss how various people figure into the DDC Working Group scenario, and what that might mean. The next day, through some phishing, Kidd gets into the Working Group's email and finds out why Carp was fired, but little more than that. Kidd and LuEllen then make a jaunt to Philly for burglary equipment that will allow them to look inside a door lock -- and then cut their own key.
Immediately after their jaunt North, Kidd and LuEllen return to the D.C. area, and gain unauthorized entry to the apartment of Michelle Strom, who also worked for the DDC Working Group, and who'd initiated the complaint that had gotten Carp fired. Once inside, Kidd finds her Dell desktop -- does a data dump to a small USB device -- then hooks his laptop to her desktop and starts dumping every document he can find into his Sony Vaio. With LuEllen's assistance, he finds Michelle's passwords buried within the text of a Janet Evanovich e-book. Shazam! Suddenly Kidd has access to every known document about the DDC Working Group.
Do you think I should stop here? I think I should stop here. Sketching out the juicy last half of the book would not be a good idea. I've revealed just enough to get you interested in the author and his book, without destroying the pleasure of reading it, or the satisfaction of the outcome. To wit, I've disclosed a few minor details so far -- but have avoided entire major swaths of the story arc. The conclusion of this volume nicely deepens the relationship that Kidd and LuEllen share, and we're lead to believe that another entry in the Kidd series may be available sometime in the next four years. I think it's safe to say that in John Sanford, I've discovered an author that writes the kind of books that I'm interested in writing myself, and whom I actually enjoy reading just as much as Stephen White.
Did I fail to mention how Sandford blends in current events? With sometimes eerie effect? That's something really special that I like about John Sandford's writing. At one point, Kidd is musing about a photo of John Ashcroft he's recovered from some of Bobby's files -- when he notices that Ashcroft has no reflection. That's really quite a wicked sense of humor there John, I must admit... I've had the same thought before too. And in yet another CNN inspired moment, an American soldier in desert camouflage shoots an Arab man in the head. Sandford can be strangely prophetic at times. Since something like that just happened in Fallujah, about a year after this particular book was written.
In conclusion, The Hanged Man's Song is one of the best books I've read this year. I once had the pleasure of meeting both John Camp and his son Roswell at 7925 Abercorn St., where I used to work, and they are both uber intelligent people whom I really enjoyed talking to. Thanks to the both of you for keeping America entertained through The Kidd Series. Would it be too much trouble to ask though, if maybe the two of you could churn out the titles in this minor series a little more swiftly? You know -- technology changes rapidly -- and the first two books in this series seem technologically dated now. At the very least, the next Kidd book should be chock full of references to the emerging Wi-Fi culture and 802.11b, 802.11g, or Wi-Max, and Kidd shouldn't be running off dramatically to pay phones anymore. Instead, he should be operating out in the open. Right in front of your nose.
Now, if Amazon.com readers like this particular volume, I highly recommend going back to 2000's The Devil's Code which I believe to be an even more intricate novel. It has a spookier villain in corporate killer St. John Corbeil. That novel's complexity is beautiful, it's length about twenty pages longer, and in that tome we get to peer into what's going on in the bad-guy's head. That didn't happen so much in The Hanged Man's Song. Hollywood would do well to adapt the four books in this series -- they could be turned into a highly lucrative franchise.
Summary of The Hanged Man's Song (Kidd)
John Sandford author of the phenomenal Prey novels returns with The Hanged Man's Song.
Just about everybody knows John Sandford for his long and successful Prey series. But just as well written and maybe more fun are his Kidd books, of which this is the fourth. Kidd is a professional thief for the Internet age: a cyberprowler, a hacker extraordinaire. In The Hanged Man's Song, he gets word that one of his key contacts--a superhacker known only as Bobby, whom Kidd has never met but has relied on many times--has disappeared. Kidd and an old buddy, both of whom could be compromised by data in Bobby's files, go looking for him. Finding his brutally murdered body draws them into a Hitchcock-esque intrigue that eventually involves stolen government secrets, crooked politicians, and a rogue CIA agent who's as crafty as he is creepy.
While filling his tale with fascinating and authentic-sounding lore about the hacker subculture, identity theft, and security cracking, Sandford keeps the action brisk with plenty of white-knuckle chases, tense stakeouts, and hairsbreadth escapes. Couple that with a smart, agreeable narrator and a cast of vivid characters evoked with an old pro's ease, and you've got one winning thriller. --Nicholas H. Allison
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