Bounty

A Novel

By: Michael Byrnes

Narrated by: Mark Bramhall

Relentlessly suspenseful and disturbingly timely, Bounty summons a chilling vision of our Internet culture gone mad, where freedom, privacy, and the rule of law are demolished by a crisis of nightmare proportions—and the future of justice lies in the hands not of the bravest but the most brutal.

When a notorious Wall Street vulture is executed in his high-rise office by a sniper’s bullet, it’s the kill shot heard around the world. Welcome to Bounty4Justice.com, a rogue website for vigilante assassins, where outraged citizens bid up bounties on corporate crooks and corrupt elites. As the number of targets soars, amateur bounty hunters and professional hit men compete to exterminate the condemned, “proof-of-death” videos become Internet sensations, and the self-styled Robin Hood pulling the strings threatens to plunge the international community into anarchy.

Along with other law enforcement agencies across the globe, the FBI and its agents on the case—led by Roman Novak and Rosemary Michaels—are desperately seeking a way to outmaneuver and overpower an all-but-invisible adversary with millions of dollars at its disposal and the ability to cripple the most sophisticated attackers with a keystroke. Following a black-hat hacker extraordinaire down a rabbit hole of firewalls, encryption, and unbreakable codes leads Novak and Michaels into the virtual underworld of the darknet—a seemingly impenetrable haven for the illicit and illegal where Bounty4Justice’s mastermind is almost certainly hiding. But just when the agents think they are close to breaching their quarry’s digital fortress, they find themselves stalked by an army of cyber outlaws out for blood.

Advance praise for Bounty

“[Michael] Byrnes fuses science fiction and espionage in this smart, near-futuristic dystopic thriller. . . . The action-packed story line is full of plot twists and explores such topical matters as cyberterrorism and hacktivism. Byrnes raises some serious questions about humankind’s increasing dependence on—and assimilation with—the digital world.”—Publishers Weekly

“Vigilantism goes viral in this thriller about a website that pays bounties for the killing of unpunished child abusers, financial scammers, human rights violators, and other bad actors. . . . Charles Bronson’s Death Wish meets the Internet.”—Kirkus Reviews

“This is a grand-scale spin on the vigilante story. . . . Byrnes’s vigilante offers a twist on the theme: he’s mastered cyberspace to the point where he can outsource some of his to-do list, offering a cash reward on his website to anyone who will kill the crooked banker . . . and the weasel who bilked Medicare for $127 million. And he’s just getting started.”—Booklist

Critic reviews

Advance praise for Bounty

“[Michael] Byrnes fuses science fiction and espionage in this smart, near-futuristic dystopic thriller. . . . The action-packed story line is full of plot twists and explores such topical matters as cyberterrorism and hacktivism. Byrnes raises some serious questions about humankind’s increasing dependence on—and assimilation with—the digital world.”—Publishers Weekly

“Vigilantism goes viral in this thriller about a website that pays bounties for the killing of unpunished child abusers, financial scammers, human rights violators, and other bad actors. . . . Charles Bronson’s Death Wish meets the Internet.”—Kirkus Reviews

“This is a grand-scale spin on the vigilante story. . . . Byrnes’s vigilante offers a twist on the theme: he’s mastered cyberspace to the point where he can outsource some of his to-do list, offering a cash reward on his website to anyone who will kill the crooked banker . . . and the weasel who bilked Medicare for $127 million. And he’s just getting started.”—Booklist

My mind kept wandering....

I wanted to love this book- the concept is very interesting. I just didn't love it though. It did not hold my attention for some reason. I stuck with it, but I spaced out for large parts of the story and it did not seem to affect my understanding of the story.

Techno-thriller Paradise!

Daniel Suarez fans won't be disappointed. Well done!

What happens when Black Hat hackers implement crowd-funded bounties on bad guys - through a website that takes suggestions, threatens bad guys with cascades of text messages, solicits death votes and pays the assassin, but punishes any government that tries to shut it down?
Justice?
Things get ugly real soon!

Court of public opinion is a killer option here

Wind up a computer system install the program's you want to put you in control of world wealth and pass judgement on the people that are perceived to have beat the system. Essentially create a vigilante society where no one is held liable for killing the villains off but instead you will be rewarded for eliminating the culprits . But you know the program is no better than the human that sets up the program, and there is always someone that can do the job better especially in a geek driven world.
This book plugs in a lot of "what if senireos." And it will crank up your brain