Trojan Horse

A Jeff Aiken Novel, Book 2

By: Mark Russinovich, Kevin Mitnick - foreword

Narrated by: Johnny Heller

Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

It's two years after the Zero Day attacks, and cyber-security analyst Jeff Aiken is reaping the rewards for crippling Al-Qaida's assault on the computer infrastructure of the Western world. His company is flourishing, and his relationship with former government agent Daryl Haugen has intensified since she became a part of his team.

But the West is under its greatest threat yet. A revolutionary, invisible trojan that alters data without leaving a trace—more sophisticated than any virus seen before—has been identified, roiling international politics. Jeff and Daryl are summoned to root it out and discover its source. As the trojan penetrates Western intelligence, and the terrifying truth about its creator is revealed, Jeff and Daryl find themselves in a desperate race to reverse it as the fate of both East and West hangs in the balance.

A thrilling suspense story and a sober warning from one of the world's leading experts on cyber-security, Trojan Horse exposes the already widespread use of international cyber-espionage as a powerful and dangerous weapon, and the lengths to which one man will go to stop it.

©2012 Mark Russinovich (P)2012 Macmillan Audio

True adventure

Would you consider the audio edition of Trojan Horse to be better than the print version?

I have not read the print version, but the audio version was excellent.

Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?

Yes, I read Mark's first book zero day, and this is the perfect next step. I would highly recommend it to anyone that is interested in how technology can affect thdays news headlines.

Which character – as performed by Johnny Heller – was your favorite?

Jeff once again is my favorite character.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I had to keep listening, it held me on my edge.

A Tight and Technical Technothriller

I read the original novel by Russinovich years ago (Zero Day) and absolutely loved it. Jeff Aiken was such a fun and different character. And Russinovich was incredibly detailed in his writings about the zero day virus he was writing out. It helps that he has lots of knowledge in the tech world having worked at Microsoft and other tech firms.

Trojan Horse was a little different, showing off more of the thriller part of technothriller — it was a little bit focused on the virus(es) and computer stuff, but more focused on Jeff and Daryl trying to save the world… again.

The story itself was strong and a fun one to follow. Trojan Horse as a book was one of the most fun technothrillers I’ve read in a while. There were just nonstop action scenes intermixed in with some technical detail here and there. The best part is that this book is a few years old now and it could still be as true as the day it was written. All of the things inside are possible, have happened, or could easily happen.

I can’t wait to continue the series and read the third Aiken novel and I’ll hopefully get to that this year.

If you like action-packed Technothrillers — Trojan Horse is definitely for you. Russinovich wrote a tight and technical thriller that I’ll remember for a while.

Trojan Horse was narrated by the great Johnny Heller — if you’re an audiobook person I don’t have to say much more. If you’re not, he has a wonderfully easy voice to listen to and made this book fly by.

Good story with major flaw

Would you listen to Trojan Horse again? Why?

Yes, I like the story and like his first book zero day, the author shows real life problems with technology and draws out fascinating real possibilities.

Any additional comments?

The danger that Jeff Aiken and Daryl Haugen get in is absolutely garbage out of a 10 year old Walter Mitty mind. If author wanted his main characters to be in so much peril he should have made them ghost recon or CIA undercover agents, not geek security experts.

Love the book

I really enjoyed this book. Specially coming from a known computer expert. I also read his last book and was happy with that as well

Good book

Would you listen to Trojan Horse again? Why?

Probably not. I have too many other books I would like to move on to

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

The most interesting part is the early part where the new characters and major plot lines are introduced. The latter part, which seemed to be mostly car chases, was less interesting and more designed to be made into a movie

What does Johnny Heller bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He brought some additional excitement to the car chases

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No

Any additional comments?

I found this book to be a little less interesting than its predecessor "Zero Day". The ending just seemed to devolve into a series of car chases and was slightly difficult to follow

Giving up on this book for now.

So I'm about 50 minutes in to the book. There has been no "hook", no catastrophic event, no big plot line introduced. Just a UN researcher who had his report mysteriously altered. I'm almost an hour in to this book and it's a slog. Nothing of substance has occured. There is terribling numbing detailed minutiae of this researchers career ambitions and his colleagues background. With an hour's worth of detail on these two characters you'd think they were the main protagonists! Our real "hero" hasn't really even been introduced yet.

Loved the first book, but this opening just sucks so bad I can't force myself to continue. I'm putting it down for now. Maybe I'll come back to it. I loved the first book, but this one is just introducing the story to us at such a glacial pace I can't handle it. Deleting for now. May come back and try again in the future. (Will update the review accordingly if I do).

Re-hash of the Same...

I really really wanted to like this series of books. And I've tried. I literally read through this book *twice* back to back. Just to see if perhaps the first go 'round I judged it unfairly... Alas..no. The book falls into the same trap, and even worse so, that the previous book falls into. Mark Russinovich is a very very smart, and talented man. In the field of security, and threat detection, he's a futurist, and a man that, has a lot of insight into what the future may hold for our political/techno world. I very much so trust his opinion and his idea's that the future of warfare will be shaped by the internet, and more covert cyberware rather than ground forces and bombs.
That being said... Mark...we're all not writers. Sadly to say, the art of writing a novel isn't a gift bestowed upon everyone. Trojan Horse, occurs a few years after Zero Day. Let's start off with my biggest praise of the series. The books start off with a very scary but ultimately very realistic look into different situations that could possibly happen if the right code fell into the wrong hands. We're given the scene of a team of doctors in the middle of an operation on someone's exposed brain, and the entire hospital goes lights out... a train is given the wrong signal on a track, and halted, while another train immediately behind collides... This similar intro was presented in Zero Day as well. Mark has quite the imagination when it comes to these types of events and ideas. He gives us very scary and thought provoking scenes that show us, we are vulnerable behind a shadow of a doubt. To this effect, Mark Russinovich, proves his mettle. Unfortunately, that's sort of where it ends. Mark is very good at showing us that we are and have been lulled into a false sense of security, and that our society is far far more vulnerable than we think. If the opportunity presented itself, we could be in serious trouble. The problem is...he made this point in his book Zero Day. We were present with the very same situation. The United States finds itself exposed and vulnerable, that honestly scares me. Then in Trojan Horse we're literally given the same set of circumstances just with a literal new plot.

Building on the idea that Trojan Horse bears too much resemblence to Zero Day, the characters all fall into the very same writing problems that they did in Zero Day. Mark does an excellent job presenting characters with interesting backstories, but utterly fails in bringing any of them to life. Each character, Jeff, Darryl, Frank, the host of shadowy bad guys are all flat and I honestly have no real emotional connection to any of them. That's pretty bad when your main character AND support characters can draw no emotional response. While the "bad guys" here are given some elaborate attention to detail in regards to their motivations (which is always a good thing), in the real time action of the story they come off as just cut outs and characters of little dimension.
I reason this to be the result of another major problem with Mark's writing. He spends far, far too long with the exposition. That is to say he sets up explanations that last pages. And it becomes tiresome. This is a complaint that dogged the first book as well. He has paragraphs explaining one matter, such as pgp keys. or a page dedicated to a political process or how a system works. These types of exposition is good if used sparingly. He literally drowns the book in it, and it leaves precious little room for actual character interaction, dialogue and anything in the way of writing for the characters.
Also, and again this is a carry over that runs into Trojan Horse as well... His characters just blur together. I read through this book twice, and I still couldn't tell you the individual characters on the Muslim/Chinese/European sides, to distinguish between them. What ends up happening is characters talk and say things, but because there's so little real substance, they just come off as flat and unengaging. Mark tries to throw in bits of humor, such as Darryl teasing Jeff about taking her on a vacation in Italy... or proding him with a jab about her getting used to certain treatment etc.. Unfortunately this type of dialogue is just empty. As there is absolutely zero relationship building in this series. Throughout zero day and trojan horse, relationships between characters is non-existant. There's a character in Trojan Horse, Frank something or another.. he's suddenly a close friend to Jeff and Darryl. But yet there's no setup to this, no follow ups, or anything. I feel as though in the way of personal lives and relationships, there's zero continuity. Nothing is followed up on, there's no consequence or continuing bit of subplot. Even Jeff's overly dramatic back story about his gf dying in the sept. 11th attacks (see my previous review of Zero Day as to why I think it's a pretty silly plot..) is not even mentioned here. And that's how Jeff,Darryl and mostly all the characters are... We're given these back stories, but none of them seem to affect the story, or future events at all. It means the characters are just flat, unmoving, static devices to advance the plot.

So getting passed the major problem of completely un-interesting characters, is the issue of actual plot. Don't get me wrong, I think the story lines are great and very realistic, but there is such a thing as "over the top". I'd rather see the characters go through a much more down to earth and realistic plot than some trumped up huge epic world ending storyline. Look...our character Jeff is the private owner of a small web security firm... The previous book already stretches the imagination that he gets wrapped up and is able to foil a terrorist plot and suddenly become a martial artist and gun totting bad ass and literally saves the United States. Alright...so a fluke right? A once in a lifetime deal that a real person would probably hold to be the greatest thing they ever accomplished in their lives... Nope, here's book two and the same "normal" guy Jeff Aiken is wrapped up in a 2nd even larger spread terrorist plot. Again managing to foil it and save the world ( I don't think that's an overstatement here) So what's my problem? It just comes off as being too fake and unbelievable. I know big plots and epic stories sell, but I'd probably really care for Jeff and Darryl a *tad* bit more if I could relate to them solving way way more down to earth crime or situation. Instead we're again given this hyped up plot that apparently a guy with just some basic logic can stop, but yet the entirety of the US intelligence agencies can't?

My last complaint is Mark's poor description of locales. Trojan Horse supposedly takes place in many different countries around Europe, China, and bits of the US. Yet there is absolutely no feeling given to any of these places. Ever. Aside from Mark mentioning the name of the current location in the beginning, I would have sworn that every chapter took place in the same area. There is no descriptive text or feeling given to any of the locales. (the only small exception is when Ahmed is in Prague I believe and describes standing out from the normal blonde/blue eyed crowd) This is a pity because the book spans many locations that could take more of a front seat and actually apply to the story, but nope. It comes off, just like the main characters...flat and inconsequential.

Both books just feel rushed and "going through the motions". The stories themselves are creative, the character backstories are lush, but none of it matters when the execution and writing of the novel itself is done so poorly. Aside from beating the bad guys the main characters have no movement. I really doubt I'll be in any rush to read and start Rogue Code. I have so little caring or motivation to read yet another installment of this series, because I'm 90% sure it'll be another carbon copy of these first two books. Sorry Jeff, you gotta save the world apparently without me...