Code 6

A Novel

By: James Grippando

Narrated by: Christine Lakin

“A Pandora’s box of demons. . . . High-stakes espionage, family drama, double crosses, noble gestures . . . it’s all here.” — Kirkus Reviews

“An ambitious thriller that. . . delivers a deeply satisfying conclusion. . . . Code 6 features some of Grippando's most compelling characters and one of his most intriguing stories.” — Booklist

Harper Lee Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author James Grippando returns with a bold new thriller that asks at what price do we open our lives to Big Data.

Aspiring playwright, Kate Gamble, is struggling to launch a script she’s been secretly researching her entire life, mostly at the family dinner table. Her father is Christian Gamble, CEO of Buck Technologies, a private data integration company whose clients include the CIA and virtually every counter-terrorism organization in the Western World. Kate’s father adores her, and a play about the dark side of Big Data would be the ultimate betrayal in his eyes. But Kate is compelled to tell this story—not only as an artist exploring the personal information catastrophe that affects us all, but as a daughter trying to understand her mother’s apparent loss of purpose, made even more disturbing by the suicide note she left behind: I did it for Kate.

Then Patrick Battle comes back into her life, changing everything she has ever thought about her play, her father, and her mother’s tragic death. Patrick is a childhood friend, but he is now Buck’s golden boy with security clearance to the company’s most sensitive projects. When Buck comes under investigation by the Justice Department and Patrick suddenly goes missing, Kate doesn’t know who to trust. A phone call confirms her worst nightmare: Patrick has been kidnapped, and the ransom demand is “Code 6”—the most secret and potentially dangerous technology her father’s company has ever developed.

Kate’s fight to bring Patrick home safely reveals a conspiracy and cover up that may implicate one of the most powerful executives in the tech industry, while the development of Kate’s play unleashes family secrets and the demons behind her mother’s cryptic final note. The two paths converge in explosive fashion, leading to a shocking and terrifying discovery that puts Kate and Patrick in the crosshairs of forces who will stop at nothing to control Code 6.

Love the author

Just wasn’t interested in the story and I blame that on lack of identifying or connecting emotionally with the main characters. However, it’s well told.

The truth of information gathering!

This story is a look at the dangers of the information industry. We should all be more vigilant and careful with our personal searches and the information about our likes and dislikes on all media searches.

Very Interesting

Code 6 linked an historical invention with the use and misuse of modern technology to collect information about us all. It taught me the word
“scraping”. All of us have had our information scraped. This is scary. An important read

Interesting mix of fact and fiction

I'm old enough to remember computer punch cards but not quite old enough to remember the hardware talked about in this novel that was apparently used by the Nazis pre-World War II. The story also made me think about the scope of information that may or may not be collected on me by social media and other interactions I have in the cyber world. I went back and forth between 3 and 4 stars for this book but, in the final analysis, I thought Grippando's deft mix of fact, fiction, and what might be, was extremely though provoking.

Not bad but as good as his older books

I love James Grippando novels in general. This was an ok book but not as good as Swytek series or many others