The Enigma Stolen

The Enigma Series, Book 5

By: Charles V Breakfield, Roxanne E Burkey

Narrated by: Derek Shoales

Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's Summary

A brilliant mathematician and spoiled rich girl, Gretchen, is focused on harnessing Big Data and computing power to control the world stock markets not only to optimize her family’s wealth, but also to control the future.

As a descendant of the Nazi Werewolf Clan, is Gretchen being maneuvered into leveraging unlimited computer power along with the ethical nihilism to manipulate lives, or just stretching her genius? 

Is Gretchen working alone, or is she adding additional computing sources from the Dark Net? The R-Group, a high-level information gathering and security team, composed of Quip, Otto, Jacob, and Petra, along with Julie and Juan’s fledgling group of Cyber Assassin Technology Services teams are trying to isolate the source of the massive computing power required.  

Could these cyber schemers be as good at analyzing the information as the R-Group themselves?

Are people unwittingly feeding an ever-growing tsunami of information into increasingly sophisticated computer systems? This begs the question: Who controls whom?

Breakfield and Burkey shared their fifth book, The Enigma Stolen, from their award-winning series focused on the relevant world of Big Data and analytics. This one will make you ask who are the winners when humans are herded to a machine's targeted end point? 

What Readers Are Saying 

“The covert Werewolf Clan, with ties to Nazis, may be responsible and has been using a computer program to accurately predict stock futures. But it has an even more ambitious plan to link supercomputers around the world and potentially manipulate the future.” (Kirkus)

©2015 Charles Breakfield and Roxanne Burkey (P)2018 Charles Breakfield and Roxanne Burkey

Wow! Crazy twists, turns and realistic cyberspace possibilities

Great storytelling and writing combining historical accuracy and technology dark side possibilities. In tech industry much more goes on in the darkness of cyberspace than people realize and Breakfield and Burkey pull back a curtain on some very realistic situations. Combination of techno thriller with corny comedy leads to great entertainment. Not sure how narrator does it, but he brings it all together like a sane Eve. Well deserving of awards. Great 5th book.

Awesome!

Wow this series gets better and better with every book I feel. Stakes are high in this one. More people are using the technology to hire assassin's to go after high profile people. When old foes and new friends come together to stop the computers from taking over you stay on edge. The R group is great as always. We get more character background in this one. A little bit of everyone's. Although not as much as I would like. But still we understand some of the characters. When politics and technology come together it's scary. It's almost as if the authors knew something we didn't back then. Can we stop technology from thinking and taking over for themselves? I think we really see how hackers are truly taking over little things. Not just them but as people are so use to our computers and phones we forget to really take in everything. This series proves that.

Awesome Techno Thriller Series!

Otto and the rest of the tight-knit group of techno experts are faced with several random events that when closely examined are all interconnected and deadly. Julie and Juan set up an on-the-ground organization to complete covert clean-up, surveillance, and collections for the R-Group. They soon discover a mole that must be dealt with accordingly. The cyber-attacks and clandestine work are riveting. The R-Group is faced with an immorally evil genius mathematician with the ability to create and manipulate data to predict the future. If that is not evil enough, she has ties to the Nazis through the secret Werewolf Clan!

Burkey and Breakfield have taken a unique cast of characters and grown them into ones we, as listeners, care about. We see into their everyday lives, into the nitty gritty as well as the exciting work they do. True storytellers who weave realistic characters into the captivating story plot.

One can only laugh at the sparing between Quip and ICABOD (the Immersive Collaborative Associate Binary Override Deterministic system is hilarious! As ICABOD learns humor and connects with other supercomputers, he forms an alliance complete with a Wednesday night poker game!

This is not a complicated techno-thriller audiobook – the authors, Burkey and Breakfield, keep it clear and understandable while also exciting. The plot is nail-biting, edge of your seat. We are given new characters and some returning characters. At the end, there is a major character twist that will leave the listener in shock. At least I didn’t see it ever coming!

Derek Shoales, the narrator, performs the book perfectly! While his female voices are not female, they are distinct enough to know who is speaking. His voice has a calm, soothing tone. He projects the characters feelings – whether shock, amusement or pain – very well. I enjoy listening to him.

There were no issues with the quality or production of this audiobook.

Audiobook was provided for review by the author/narrator/publisher.

Please find this complete review and many others at my review blog.

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Interesting advancement in the Enigma series

The thrilling adventures of our favourite crews are back in The Enigma Stolen, by Roxanne Burkey and Charles Breakfield. In this fifth installment we are brought into a scene where there is much loss, and little gain. A difficult discussion between father and daughter: a transaction of human life and a cold closing to a young life. This is an important tone to set for the journey we are about to take into the world of R-Group, ICABOD, Petra, Jacob, EZ, Julie and Juan. In this installment, we are not along for the ride as a large corporation or government body is being taken down. No, this story feels much more personal than ever before.
Burkey and Breakfield are clearly good at their craft. Their books are consistently intelligent, thrilling and excellent to read. By transposing book five in the series to an audio format, we get to enjoy the voice of Derek Shoales. His ability to transform into several people of varying genders, ethnicities and personalities is superb. There are always little snags when you have a cast as diverse as the ones that grace the landscapes of an Enigma book, but they do not detract from the overall quality. The only true element that could be seen as a detraction, revolves around a scene in which there is unexpectedly vile sexual content. It’s one thing to be surprised by this in the printed word, but to hear it being spoken out loud makes it all the more uncomfortable.
The core of the story, where technology and the ability it has to change the potential future of the world are toyed with by those with unsavoury palates is still exciting and fun to listen to. It’s almost like sitting with that aunt or uncle who has lived an exciting life and they are regaling you with tales of wonder. It does get a little hard to follow if you are not adept with technical terms or have a hard time grasping mathematical concepts, but it’s still an enjoyable listen.
The fifth installment in the Enigma series, The Enigma Stolen by Roxanne Burkey and Charles Breakfield is definitely a positive continuation of the tales we have come to know and love. With only one glaring issue this book gives us a deeper look at our cast members while bringing in some new ones. It may seem a tad bit daunting for those who are not technologically savvy to be able to follow along as Derek Shoales leads us on this adventure, but it is definitely a good listen.