Popco

"Alice Butler has been receiving some pretty odd messages - all anonymous, all written in simple code, all eerily vague but pointed enough to show that the sender has been watching her closely." "Are the messages from someone at PopCo - the slightly sinister, profit-hungry toy company that has herded Alice and its other top creatives out to a secluded Thought Camp? Are they from Alice's long-disappeared, treasure-hunting father? Are they from someone who knows that her cryptanalyst grandfather left her the key to finding that treasure? Is quiet Ben, Alice's new love, hiding something that could help her discover their source? And could it be that these codes will lead Alice to a secret even more carefully guarded than her own?"--BOOK JACKET.

SCARLETT THOMAS is the author of several novels. Named one of the twenty best young British writers by the National advertising Independent on Sunday in 2001, she was Elle Style's Writer of the Year in 2002. She writes for the Independent, Scotland on Sunday, the Guardian, and the Literary Review. She lives in Devon and teaches writing at the University of Kent.