Hayden Drake is excited about his new
consulting job and teaming up with his college roommate, Shane.
Hayden is an engineer doing work on a contract basis for several
firms. He's pleased to get a contract from Marin Design Engineering
(MDE) because they pay well and seem to give good benefits to their
employees, like a day at a Giants game.
His elation doesn't last long when two
employees from the company commit suicide, one being Shane. In fact,
he's there when Shane jumps off a bridge. The police naturally
suspect Hayden. So does Shane's sister, Rebecca. After a rather rocky
start, she and Shane decide to work together to unravel the mystery.
The first scenes in this book are very
well done. I was especially drawn in to the scene where Hayden tries
to keep Shane from committing suicide. However, after Hayden and
Rebecca team up to solve the mystery of what's wrong at MDE, the plot
becomes rather silly. It's hard to believe that two rational people
would continually try to mislead the police when people are being
killed all around them, particularly, since there's no good reason to
dislike the police, except that Hayden was wrongfully accused of
dealing drugs when he was in college.
My major concern with this book is that
the author doesn't seem to understand engineering or technology very
well. He makes a big deal of having Hayden sign a non-disclosure
agreement before starting work at MDE. Non-disclosure agreements are
perfectly standard in engineering and contractors have to sign them
all the time. This is true in other industries as well.
The author also makes a big deal about
drawings being destroyed. Generally engineering firms today work on
CAD/CAM machines, so the files are available digitally and can be
stored on line, or in some other major storage location owned by the
company. Also, the file Shane ships Hayden that starts some of the
action could be copied and stored on line. There's no reason to have
only on copy on disc. I was very surprised that the technical details
were so poor.
I can't recommend this book. There's
lots of action, if you like that, but the story really degenerates
after the opening and the characters are far from memorable.
I reviewed this book for the Amazon
Vine Program.
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