Book Review: Invasion of Privacy (Deep Web Thriller 1) by Ian Sutherland

A brutal killing takes place in an office meeting room in London. The victim is a beautiful young cellist, lured to a fake audition for the Royal Opera House orchestra.

MURDERS: Detective Inspector Jenny Price investigates, baffled by how the killer knew his victim's innermost desires.

WEBCAMS: Does the answer lie in a website that broadcasts webcam feeds from inside homes, offices and shops? Expert security consultant Brody Taylor, hired to test the highly secure site’s cyber-defences by its anonymous owner, begins to suspect so.

VOYEURS: The residents of thousands of households across the country carry on their day-to-day lives oblivious that they are being remotely observed by internet voyeurs around the world, one of which is a sadistic killer who has chosen his next unsuspecting target, a beautiful Swedish nanny.

Thrown together, can Brody and Jenny find a way to bring down the site and track down the serial killer before it’s too late? But can Jenny trust the charming but mysterious security consultant?

Invasion of Privacy by Ian Sutherland was a really good read and I could not put it down. Having enjoyed the prequel novella, Social Engineer, I knew I was in for a treat. 

This well thought out, fast-paced mystery thriller showed how easily private networks and computers can be hacked making a mockery of online security protocols. Not only that, it cleverly depicts how easy it is to invade the privacy of others.

One man, wanting to destroy the credibility of Brody Taylor within the hacking community, sets things in motion. By setting up an extremely secure website that broadcasts webcam feeds, he selects Brody to test the security of his site. The site has also garnered the attention of voyeurs from around the world and provides a killer a way to select his victims before he lures them to their deaths.

From the moment Brody accepted the challenge, it became apparent that he was being set up to fail. One live webcam feed catches his attention and interest and via this feed he comes across Detective Inspector Jenny Price who is investigating the brutal murders. Looking for another angle to hack the site, he teams up with her. Using a combination of smarts, computer skills, and social engineering helps with the search to catch the killer before it is too late and bring the site down.

Invasion of Privacy has it all — conflict, cliffhangers, a great story and lots of suspense. It was a brilliant read and I am looking forward to the next book in the series.

Copyright Tia J. Lee 2015

All Rights Reserved.

Book Review: Social Engineer by Ian Sutherland

I love technology. Love the world wide web. Love the fact that I can find answers to anything that puzzles me instantly. Love the fact that I can access my data at any time trusting the security policies implemented by IT professionals. Like many others, I assume that the these policies ensures that our data is kept in the 'vault'. I hear of breaches, of websites been taken down, of trojans and what not, however, Social Engineer by Ian Sutherland, cleverly takes you through a simple process on how a very secure system can be breached by using information that is out there, great acting skills, psychology and with a lot of smarts.

If you know what your looking for, where to look and what questions to ask, people can provide you with enough information that when pieced together it is enough to infiltrate the most sophisticated and secure IT systems and that is what Brody Taylor, a computer hacker, does in a bid to make amends and impress the woman he loves.

This is a short standalone book. It is a great read and I enjoyed it from start to finish. The next book in the series, Invasion of Privacy, features Brody Taylor who continues to do his thing as a computer hacker.