Bounty, Michael Byrnes
Bounty, Michael Byrnes
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Bounty

Author: Michael Byrnes

Narrator: Mark Bramhall

Unabridged: 13 hr 20 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/26/2016


Synopsis

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

About The Author

Michael Byrnes is the author of the international bestseller The Sacred Bones, which has been translated into more than twenty languages. He lives in Florida with his wife and three children.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Darcia

By now most of us have heard of the darknet and understand, at least in a peripheral sense, the dangers lurking there. This book isn't so much about what goes on in the darknet as it is about the possibility of one website taking over and exploiting the dark side of the internet, as well as the dark......more

Goodreads review by Bob

Due out in July 2016. This is a fast-paced, well-plotted thriller centering on an FBI agent leading a world-wide investigation of a terrifying website. The sniper killing of a hated Wall Street financier turns out to be a bounty killing set up by the website, and it turns out that this isn't the only......more

Goodreads review by Susanne

The Bounty is a thriller/suspense novel by Michael Byrnes which was extremely hard for me to get through and was not much of a thriller. This mystery involves cyber attacks against specific individuals on whose heads bounties have been placed. The FBI and other governmental agencies get involved to......more

Goodreads review by Viva

This book has an interesting premise: a crowdfunded kill list. Corrupt politicians? Crooked businessmen? Criminals untouched by the law? No problem! Just get them on the list and they'll be assassinated. The whole setup is a bit dodgy and not totally realistic but I could live with it. But the bigge......more

Goodreads review by Brooke

I was lucky enough to win a free copy from Goodreads First Reads. Bounty follows investigators trying to stop Bounty4Justice, a vigilante democratic website that raises money right the wrongs of the criminal justice system. People submit others for the website, evidence is collected and backers can c......more


Quotes

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