Tor, Jul 2001, 22.95, 230 pp.
ISBN: 0312853777
Detective Dore Konstantine runs the three-person Techno Crime, AR (Artificial Reality) Division. Though swamped with work, as the net has become a copyright nightmare, Dore would not mind if they could win one once a while. Proof is difficult at best to find and justice is a cyber thought of the mundane realm.
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However, Dore is stunned when designer Susannah Ell claims her former spouse wealthy Hastings Dervish is stalking her via artificial reality. Stalking is a real world dangerous dilemma, not a cyberworld problem. Susannah wants Dore to make Hastings stop preferably by arresting him. A disbelieving Dore knows the world of cyberspace is filled with lies, misinformation, and deadly illusion. In this place, Dore seeks the truth amidst the cesspool of AR while Japanese police peer Goku believes her target is working the Hong Kong casinos. Is that in the real world or the artificial world? Either way, Dore is going to learn just how clever and dangerous Dervish really is.
The return of Dore Konstantine, cyberspace police officer, is a joyful event for those readers who relish something quite different in their police procedurals. Like with its predecessor (see TEA FROM AN EMPTY CUP), DERVISH IS DIGITAL is a wild ride that never slows down for a moment even when the readers enter AR, a place that seems more authentic than our reality does at times. Talented Pat Cadigan takes the police procedural into places that few, if any, has gone before.
Harriet Klausner
The review of this Book prepared by Harriet Klausner