Instruments of Darkness

Sean Doyle is a modern detective, if that adjective may be used to describe someone whose skills with technology are rooted in the 1990s. His style and his use of the trademark patois of an old-style film noir P.I. further mark him as a relic, almost a man of another age. So that when he is throttled awake one New Orleans morning under the guns of a SWAT team of federal agents and hauled away as, of all things, a cyber-terrorist, it become clear he has made an unusual enemy somewhere out there in the steamy city. He is assigned an FBI watchdog, Special Agent Alex Janssen, who technically and in other ways seems his polar opposite. But when she is hacked in turn, in a way far worse than he was, they are thrown together in common cause to identify this mysterious hacker who seems almost omniscient regarding their personal lives. The trail they follow leads in several directions, and along a winding course whose waystations include murder, betrayals by those close to them, discoveries regarding the darknet, and finally their coming face to face with a team of murderous human traffickers.

This novel, set in the swelter of summertime New Orleans, is leavened in its dark theme by some identifiable locations, flashes of sardonic humor, and encounters with some of the Crescent City's eccentrics.

Thomas Foyle is sort of a veteran twice over, having moved from his career as an Infantry Officer--stalking the Korean DMZ, commanding trainees, attending Airborne and Ranger training--to a latter-day career as a collector and manager of Human Intelligence, for some of the usual acronyms. He has in the past written for niche historical periodicals, but has lately harbored a desire to create a work of fiction that conveys some far more modern threats, particularly those that exist in the nether regions of the Internet. His goal is to avoid taking the well-trodden route of the technothriller, such that insofar as there are necessary technical discussions, there are none that would not be readily understood by a layperson, and it further would be leavened in its dark theme with occasional flashes of humor.