The new novel from William Gibson, "one of the most
visionary, original, and quietly influential writers
currently working." (The Boston Globe) Hollis
Henry worked for the global marketing magnate Hubertus
Bigend once before. She never meant to repeat the
experience. But she's broke, and Bigend never feels it's
beneath him to use whatever power comes his way -- in
this case, the power of money to bring Hollis onto his
team again. Not that she knows what the "team" is up to,
not at first. Milgrim is even more thoroughly owned
by Bigend. He's worth owning for his useful gift of
seeming to disappear in almost any setting, and his
Russian is perfectly idiomatic - so much so that he
spoke Russian with his therapist, in the secret Swiss
clinic where Bigend paid for him to be cured of the
addiction that would have killed him. Garreth has a
passion for extreme sports. Most recently he jumped off
the highest building in the world, opening his chute at
the last moment, and he has a new thighbone made of
rattan baked into bone, entirely experimental, to show
for it. Garreth isn't owned by Bigend at all. Garreth
has friends from whom he can call in the kinds of favors
that a man like Bigend will find he needs, when things
go unexpectedly sideways, in a world a man like Bigend
is accustomed to controlling. As when a Department
of Defense contract for combat-wear turns out to be the
gateway drug for arms dealers so shadowy that even
Bigend, whose subtlety and power in the private sector
would be hard to overstate, finds himself outmaneuvered
and adrift in a seriously dangerous world.
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