When Jerry sent me a copy of SYN:FIN to review, I put it on the Kindle and put it out of my mind. It was well down in the queue of books I needed to read for one reason or another, I was trying to finish my own first draft of the sequel to Fighting Gravity, and, well, quite frankly, I’d never read a techno thriller and didn’t know if I’d like it.

What a stupid thing to do, in retrospect, because I loved this book. The techno aspect was just fascinating. It was like the best of near future sci-fi, which I love, combined with the thrill of knowing that this could really be happening right now and wondering if maybe it is…

I got to interview Jerry earlier this week, and he was really cool. But what’s this book about? Well, here’s the blurb:

SYN and FIN. They mark the beginning and end of every transaction we offer to cyberspace. What if someone decided to track them all? It can be done and Jim Harrison was the man who taught the government’s most powerful computer to do it. Then he changed his mind and crippled the engine he helped make. The people who sponsored him were pissed.

After three years of trying to fix what Harrison had done, the people who built the computer want him found. Why now? What changed? Jim comes out of hiding and risks capture to find the answers. With the help of his adopted son, an ex-girl friend and a tantalizing FBI agent, he begins to unravel the truth. What he discovers will shock you. It is a fast paced ride that takes you to the edge of the possible and introduces you to some great characters.

Now I don’t think that quite conveys the excitement or the feel of the book. There’s a great voice to this one. Really sharp and smart and a bit smartassed. The main character’s a tech geek with some real balls and an attitude, but it’s the kind that makes you like him and root for him from the beginning.

The characters are diverse alright, from several different cultures which plays beautifully into the unfolding action and intrigue. The tech detail is there but not in infodumps or dry monologues. Honestly, if you have a smartphone and you like it, you’ll probably get and really enjoy this book.

The writer reading this did want to object to a few of his choices, mostly being downright ballsy with POV in a way I think honestly worked but probably wouldn’t have gotten past most trad-pub editors. But that’s the beauty of self-pub, isn’t it? A very nice thing to find is that it was beautifully proofread. Oh, it wasn’t perfect, but there were no more occasional typos than you would find in any book put out by a traditional publisher.

It was a great read, really. I hear there’s another one coming from Jerry before too awfully long. I’ll be looking forward to it.

Find SYN:FIN on Goodreads, and Amazon.

You can find Jerry Gentry on FaceBook:  http://on.fb.me/pOOG7w

His blog: http://jlgentry.wordpress.com