Skinner — Charlie Huston

Known by the name of the psychological experiment that fostered his emotionless brutality, Skinner founded his career in "asset protection" on fear. To touch anyone under Skinner's protection was to invite destruction -- a savagely effective methodology, until Skinner's CIA handlers began to fear him as much as his enemies'did and banished him to the hinterlands of the intelligence community.

Now a cyberterrorist attack on the U.S. power grid is about to end that long exile. His asset is Jae, a roboticist with a gift for seeing the underlying systems violently shaping a new era of global guerrilla warfare.

At the root of it all is a young boy, the innocent seed of a plot grown in the slums of Mumbai. Brought to flower, that plot will tip the balance of world power in a perilous new direction.

Skinner's First Maxim, The only true way to secure an asset is to ensure that the cost of acquiring it is greater than its value," has faded from doctrine to myth in the years since his disappearance. Now Skinner's about to remind the competition his mantra isn't just a thought experiment -- it's a proinise. Welcome to Charlie Huston's masterpiece, a combination of le Carre spycraft and Stephenson technophilosophy -- a new kind of thriller for a new kind of world.