Review: An Innovative Cyber Thriller
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 5, 2011
Joe is Online by Chris Wimpress is a clever and adroit book, at times cynical and disturbing (by design), but always intriguing and absorbing.  The novel is a cyber-thriller, an unsettling dissection of today's society and technology.The book is written as a series of online emails, chats and personal electronic documents from the point of view of several people, all of whom eventually tie together in a terrorist/conspiracy scenario.  It is an attention-grabbing book that utilizes today's reliance on technology as its backdrop.I loved how this novel plays out, slowly and in pieces, through these bits of electronic correspondence.  It is an intriguing way to build the narrative and gives the reader both an intimate and limited point of view into the characters.  It also gives the novel a nice backbone of tension and suspense as the shadowy manipulations of one of the characters unfolds.The contemporary, everyday tone of the book does turn with the revelations of the plotline, taking on a more sinister aspect, and a post-apocalyptic quality which splits the flow of the book.  I found this slightly jarring, but it was an effective method of conveying the sudden societal shift from events depicted.  Also, for a short time I was wondering where one of the subplots was going, but the author manages to tie all the disparate threads together into an unexpected ending.  The book's denouement is unusual and I found it very interpretive.  I enjoyed the speculative finish, but it might not be to all tastes.I recommended Joe is Online as a great book and a fascinating techno-thriller.