I take guilty pleasure in reading paperback novels by popular writers of paperback mysteries. But when I grow tired of bloodshed, murder victims and weapons, a know-all hero, I switch to the offbeat books. I am usually against novel ’series’ that feature the same set of characters. But a very interesting and unlikely hero called Lincoln Rhyme, a former cop, caught my attention in the book - The Bone Collector. The interesting thing about this guy is that he is a quadriplegic, i.e., has no sensation and control in any of his limbs and is hence restricted to his bed all the time. This is the same condition the original superman - Christopher Reeves suffered from. What it also means is, that he solves mysteries purely using his brain and the stories usually involve very little action from the hero’s part.
When Jeffrey Deaver, the author wrote this novel, he initially intended to kill the character at the end of it, but decided against it. Due to the large success that the novel enjoyed, he turned this into a series. So for paperback mystery enthusiasts, the characters Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs - the redhead detective and Rhyme’s partners are as familiar as a blood relative.
The thing with such series is that it is extremely difficult to sustain the interest levels of the reader. The characters are the same, their functions and characteristics are things that readers already know by now. The mystery is usually a murder and the way the characters will go about solving the mystery is usually the same (since they are the same characters from the previous works). So what can the author do? Simple, create newer and meaner villains !
The more the series extended, the meaner and more invincible the villains became and the lesser was my enthusiasm towards these books. However, my dad picked up the latest in the series the other day and since I had nothing else to read and since I literally go crazy without a book in hand when I am eating, I started reading this one.
This is not great literature, so this post is not about the merits or demerits of the subject or the style of the author. I was more struck by the actual subject of the novel. The villain in this time is computer literate and is involved in identity theft.
Given how much everything around us is computerized these days and given the fact that most of our day-to-day transactions are recorded electronically somewhere or the other, the events described in the novel don’t seem too far removed from life. The possible repercussions of data mining are described in great detail and some of the events described in the novel seem to real to be ignored as a writer’s fantasy.
Purchases on the internet, resumes on job sites, seemingly innocent survey forms, swipe cards to get in and out of office, RFIDs to track product usage, understand customer psychology and study patterns - there seem to be so many details that we seem to be giving away about ourselves and it is a very real possibility that there are twisted minds out there who can and will misuse this information to serve their purposes.
How secure am I in today’s electronic world? How anonymous can anybody be? Take the example of any blogger, say me. My neighbours know me by face (and that too is not a certainty), but those I interact with through my blogs probably know more about me than a neighbour who is physically closer to me. Given sufficient time, access, an intelligent mind can probably piece together all information about an individual and use it too.
Just the other day, my brother and I were discussing about this. He was telling me that according to him, many of the marketing SMS that we receive on our mobile phones were because of our resumes on job sites. This, I realized was not always true. I returned only 3 weeks back from onsite and hence have a new number. Now this number has been published to a few selected people (about 5-6 of them), but I have already started receiving calls from banks about personal loans and SMSes on various subjects including massage services in the area and homemade food that can be delivered at my doorstep. Hypothetically, if I did post my resume on a website, I would not have updated it (-I have not-posted my resume, I mean!!), then how did these guys get my mobile number AND my details!!
Although I keep reminding myself that I am not a character in a mystery novel and such things don’t usually happen to me, reading this book at this time has made my imagination more colourful and wild! I am worried what else these people know about me and whether anyone will really worry enough about me to wreck my life by stealing my identity (whatever little is left after working in IT for so many years !!)
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