Review – False Witness

‘False Witness’ was suspenseful and intriguing. The fact that if the ‘Abacus Algorithm’ really did exist, Internet security would be non-existent was a scary thought. 

There were so many interesting characters in ‘False Witness’, from Professor Dagan, who discovered the algorithm – that is the ‘key to every lock’, to bounty-hunter/repo artist Clark Shealy (a.k.a. David Hoffman), to the ambitious law students Isaiah, Jamie, and Wellington.

When Clark goes to arrest a highly wanted man, he instead finds out that he has been double-crossed and gets knocked out. When he wakes up, he learns that his wife was abducted by the Chinese Mafia!

They give him an ultimatum: locate and bring Professor Dagan to them within 48 hours. If he fails to do so, they will start torturing his wife.

Until he had actually captured Dagan, Clark hadn’t thought twice about the ethics of exchanging Dagan for Jessica. The only question had been how to do it. – Page 71

What I didn’t like about ‘False Witness’ was how some chapters ended suddenly and the next chapter didn’t continue on where the last one left off. And at one point the book jumped ahead 4 years.

The concept that there could be this algorithm that could cripple the Internet, fascinated me. But the fact that the mob wanted it SO much that they kidnapped Clark’s wife and demanded him to bring Dagan to them, added a lot suspense and tension, making ‘False Witness’ (at times) hard to put down.

I found Jamie’s story really sad, what happened to her and the reasons why were so unnecessary and mean (I’m not going to say what happened because that would give too much away). I enjoyed Wellington’s character. He’s was so smart, yet he didn’t gloat about it – in fact he was somewhat shy.

All in all, I really enjoyed ‘False Witness’! I would recommend this if you enjoy suspense books or legal thrillers.