'Skinner' by Charlie Huston

Skinner, Charlie Huston (3)

This book was described as a mix between John Le Carre and Neal Stephenson. That’s heady company – though I can see the intent of the comment. The story has the spy angst of Le Carre, with the cyber knowledge and tools of Stephenson. My biggest problem with the book is that it contains relatively complicated passages. Normally something I enjoy, but in this case the complications at the beginning kept me from engaging completely. It was as if Huston wanted to show his cleverness by several flows of buzzword diarrhea. Then, once I got into the story and the pace picked up, I found myself re-reading and stumbling over paragraphs in my haste to finish a chapter. I liked the idea of a spy who has to protect his ‘asset’, in this case a robotics specialist who can also see patterns in the big picture, against all threats. Of course the spy is very broken (his nickname ‘Skinner’ is due to being a real science experiment of his autistic parents by being kept in a BJ Skinner-like box till he was 12 years old), which allows him to do all the bad stuff spies are supposed to do. Once I got into the story and tried to exhibit the patience to read through the complicated bits, I enjoyed the ride.