From Booklist
P. J. Gray, psychologist and computer whiz, is feeling pretty satisfied with herself after successfully solving her first case as head of the St. Louis Police Department's Computerized Homicide Investigations Project. But she doesn't have much time to rest on her laurels: someone is using brilliantly engineered computer scams to alter hospital records, making lethal adjustments in prescribed treatments and drug dosages that have caused the deaths of two patients. Using virtual-reality computer simulations, P. J. reenacts the murders, hoping she'll find a clue to the killer's identity. Instead, she finds that a fiendish computer hacker has prepared a series of horrifying computerized "clues" to warn her of more deaths to come. P. J. and her feisty partner, Detective Leo Schultz, combine their considerable skills to mount a devious trap for the killer, who will stop at nothing to exact the revenge he's spent his entire life plotting. Kennett's gripping, thoroughly entertaining read will appeal to fans of Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta mysteries. Emily Melton
Fire Cracker FROM THE PUBLISHER
In a busy St. Louis hospital a wealthy, elderly patient dies, the victim of a complex series of medical orders carried out through the hospital's computer system. A few days after, a diabetic man is administered an overdose of insulin - again on computerized command. While the hospital insists it is blameless in both cases, veteran homicide cop Leo Schultz isn't so sure. And PJ Gray, the director of the department's Computerized Homicide Investigations Project, suspects that someone is tampering with the hospital's system - with the deadliest of results. Still recovering from a bitter divorce, the single mother of a twelve-year-old boy, PJ knows what it's like to try to win a losing battle. Her first case nearly cost her everything: she still has the jagged scar from a madman's carving knife to remind her how fragile - and precious - life is. Now the psychologist and expert in the groundbreaking field of forensic computer simulation faces her most impossible investigation yet. It will shatter the illusion of a safe haven she thought she'd finally created for her son and herself. Because this time her quarry is far more elusive. This time, PJ Gray and Leo Schultz are hunting a man who doesn't exist. His handle is Cracker. A cunning computer hacker who engineered his own disappearance and death, he has hatched a monstrous plan for retribution that PJ is just beginning to comprehend. As she uses her skills to enter his brilliant, tortured mind, Cracker taunts her with a final challenge: Anticipate his next move - or many more will die.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Will "Cracker" Carpenter is a veteran highway robber on the information highway, earning money by compiling confidential profiles. In Kennett's (Gray Matter) second novel, however, Cracker turns his skills in a deadly direction. He hacks into a hospital's computerized operating system and murders wealthy Rowena Clark by changing the computer records of her medical status and treatment protocols. But Clark is not his real targetCracker's planning an elaborate trap for his stepmother, Mom Elly, who, he believes, killed his father. A tough homicide cop, Leo Schultz, suspects Dr. Graham, Clark's physician, a woman who appears to be hiding something. His partner (and boss), PJ Gray, isn't so sure. PJ directs the Computerized Homicide Investigation Project, a small, under-funded unit of four in the St. Louis Police Department. She's 40, a single mother with a 12-year-old boy, and she's an expert in using virtual reality as a crime-solving tool. Leo is boorish but real, a good counterpoint to PJ's first-class cyber-brain. Another patient's medical orders are altered by computer, and the patient dies of insulin overdose. Cracker stays one step ahead of PJ, seemingly all-powerful in his ability to cause death with a keystroke. The pace crackles when PJ enters the virtual hospital-room crime scene she's developed, first as "killer" and then as "victim." Kennett capably works the hig-tech angle, but the bang in Fire Cracker fizzles because we learn so much about Cracker's past that his next moves, and ultimately the outcome, fail to surprise us. (July)
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