Surveillance
“Grace is a welcome change from typical muck-rakers seen in fiction. Encompassing corporate greed plus shadier sides government, this is an unusual espionage thriller that packs a decent punch.”
If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear - or do you?
Journalist Grace Marks, needing a story to boost her career and finances, is intrigued by a surge in minor crime in New Zealand suburbs. She discovers it’s organised, but why? Her investigations lead her to Will Manilow, CEO of Erebus Optics, whose security company uses innovative technology from America.
Manilow’s business is booming but he’s suspicious of his American owner’s motives. While searching through their internal website he stumbles over a document that outlines what they are planning, and what’s at stake. Saving the document to a flash drive inadvertently triggers an alert deep in America.
As Grace interviews Manilow to get to the bottom of the story, Marla Simmons, an agent with specialist IT skills, is flying to New Zealand to sanitise the document while two of her ruthless colleagues keep a wary eye on events, ready to intervene.
As events spiral out of control, can Grace uncover the truth in time or will the document be sanitised along with everyone who has seen it?
NZ Print
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What the international judging panel had to say
"Anti-social behaviour and the expansion of CCTV are hot topics right now, and it's not hard at all to envisage this situation - even if the places are unfamiliar, the characters' actions and reactions are universal. Encompassing corporate control, greed, and the shadier side of government agencies, plus the link between surveillance of a society and demanding compliance from citizens, it's [not your] standard espionage thriller, but overall it packs a decent punch. The characters ... are sketched firmly so they stick in the mind, and Grace is a journalist with ethics and integrity, which is a welcome change from the stereotyped muck-rakers so often seen in fiction. It's also interesting to see Covid as a plot point, not just as a background mention."
