The Pixel Eye FROM THE PUBLISHER
New York City, the next decade: terrorism is more threatening than ever; skyscrapers are a cherished, defiant statement; underground concourses have multiplied because of the sense of security they provide; law enforcement and civil liberties groups clash over the proper boundary between public safety and personal freedom. That's the tenor of the times when NYPD forensic detective Dr. Phil D'Amato is called in to investigate an urgent case - squirrels missing from Central Park.
It sounded like a joke, but Phil soon discovers it's anything but. A new telecom technology can put implants into the brains of living squirrels to translate what they are seeing into computer-viewable images. But who's behind this surveillance breakthrough? Federal agencies or terrorists?
Phil's latest adventure pits personal loyalties against public responsibilities, privacy against freedom, security against animal rights, all against a backdrop of a near-future, post-9/11 New York City that is completely recognizable, even with its new generation of advanced cellular phones, free-standing holograms, tunneling technologies, transport systems, and forensic computers. The Pixel Eye offers a vision of a future we may all soon be living in.
FROM THE CRITICS
The New York Times
The nuttiness of the premise and the grittiness of the near-future New York ambience are equally appealing.—Gerald Jonas
Publishers Weekly
In this breezily chilling story, Levinson's latest near-future SF thriller to feature NYPD forensic detective Dr. Phil D'Amato (after 2002's The Consciousness Plague), D'Amato gets sucked into the Department of Homeland Security's national war on terror after he starts investigating missing and drugged squirrels in Central Park. In an attempt to gather information as unobtrusively as possible, research into using squirrels and hamsters as recording devices is underway at labs across the country. Yet if recording devices can be implanted in animals, can't they also be used as bombs? And if so, how do you stop, say, a squirrel bomber when you don't know if any of the squirrels is actually wired to explode-and even if you know one is, how do you identify it? These are the questions on D'Amato's mind as he races from New York to Boston to exciting Wilmington, Del., attempting to put the pieces together before catastrophe strikes. If the characters aren't all that three-dimensional, well, maybe that's a good thing. In this age of heightened security, the thought of keeping an eye out for suspicious-looking rodents is enough to send a shiver down most readers' spines. Agent, Christopher Lotts at Ralph Vicinanza Agency. (Aug. 6) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Called in to investigate a report of missing squirrels, NYPD forensics detective Phil D'Amato (Silk Road) quickly uncovers evidence pointing to a conspiracy using animals as surveillance tools, but the identity of the conspirators remains a secret. Uncertain whether terrorists or government agents are at the root of the mystery, D'Amato forges ahead in his search for answers to questions no one wants him to ask. Levinson's latest novel featuring the resourceful and wise-cracking D'Amato delivers another satisfying mix of hard sf intrigue and detective story set against a 21st-century New York City whose population is caught up in a wave of antiterrorist measures yet clinging tenaciously to its freedom. Controversies such as individual privacy vs. national security and animal rights vs. human needs add timeliness to a fast-moving story that belongs in most libraries. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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