Michael is out of his depth. The closest he ever came to working in tech was when he rode a delivery bike for a food app in Vancouver. Yet when his coder girlfriend dies, he is inexplicably headhunted by sinister tech mogul Campbell Fess, who transplants him to Silicon Valley. There, a reluctant female spy named Aoife lures him into the hands of Towse, an enigmatic war-gamer, who tricks them both into joining his quest to save the world, and reality itself, from the deadliest weapon ever invented.

Hunted by government agents and corporate goons, manipulated at every turn by the philosophising Towse, Aoife and Michael find themselves in an intercontinental chase which will take them from California to New York, from the forests of Uganda to Jerusalem, Gaza, Alexandria, and Paris, and to a final showdown with the truth in Aoife's native Ireland. (From House of Anansi Press)

Ed O'Loughlin is a Canadian author and journalist who currently lives in Dublin. His other books include the novels Not Untrue and Not Unkind and Minds of Winter. Minds of Winter was a finalist for the 2017 Scotiabank Giller Prize.