This is Gomorrah by Tom Chatfield
The bookworm’s tale: 5/5
An intense immersion in the internet abyss, following a character as endearing as he is gullible, fighting to stay alive.
A terrorist, a geek, and a liar: what a combo. Three characters that seem to have nothing in common but who are nevertheless linked in a breath-taking story.
Azi Bello, is a computer geek working in his shed at East Croydon. He is a talented hacker recognized in his profession under the name of AZ. He is a geek’s prototype: badly shaved, hoodie too big, pants too old. His office is furnished with the strict minimum: computers and computer items, a coffee maker, a giant desk, and a chair. Also, Azi he’s not a black hat in that he has his own moral values: fighting racism and discrimination on the net. Azi seems like a character easy to imagine, but he is nevertheless much more complex than it seems.
Meanwhile, Kabir and Hamid, cousins, are in Syria working with the Islamic State. Hamid dies quickly while Kabir is creating propaganda on the net.
Everyone lives his life more or less peacefully, but when Azi gets a message from Sigma, his best hacker-friend, everything becomes turned upside down. Azi the lonely guy that never leave his computers is kicked out from his home by a mysterious woman. He finds himself involved in a story too big for him: from England to Germany and from Greece to arrive in San Francisco, enemies want him dead, while a mysterious organisation wants him to find a way to access to Gomorrah: the most confidential place in the darknet.
Through this story, Azi reveals himself as he tries to survive trying to find out who the bad guys and the good guys are.
This techno-thriller uses the bests ingredients to makes a complex and fascinating story: from astonishment, to suspense, discovering the worst people in humanity, from neo-Nazism to terrorism. This book offers a new world to discover through hacking and technology. This is Gomorrah offers a breath-taking story as one twist follows another. If you read it, you’ll realize that This is Gomorrah is so brilliantly conducted that it’s impossible to ever predict the outcome.
I really liked this book because of his universe to which I’m not familiar, but most of all thanks to the writing of Tom Chatfield: a hypnotic one, so hypnotic that it gives you the feeling to be here with the protagonists. I would certainly recommend it to you if you love suspense and if you have a definite taste for the most unlikely and surprising twists.