Spyder Web

Nolan Kilkenny Thriller #1

by Tom Grace

Former Navy SEAL Nolan Kilkenny leads the CIA and FBI on the breakneck pursuit of three brilliant computer "hackers" who have stolen a top-secret intelligence-gathering project that can penetrate the world's most heavily protected computer networks

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Espionage, Adventure, Audiobook, Action

451 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Tom Grace is the bestselling author of the Nolan Kilkenny series of adventure novels, and an architect in private practice. The Kilkenny novels feature Graces signature character, an ex-Navy Seal with strong ties to the Catholic Church.

In constructing his novels, Grace draws upon his intensely detail-oriented skills honed in the practice of architecture, in which he designs projects ranging from private residences to cutting-edge research facilities.

As both an author and architect, Grace lives by Mies van der Rohes famous aphorism: God is in the details. Painstaking research underpins each of his novels, creating the factual foundations that support the stories.

Tom Grace resides with his family in Michigan.

Series:
* Nolan Kilkenny Mystery

Reviews

[Jill Manske · Rating 2 out of 5]

How can you have a really good plot and still end up with a mediocre book? Have Tom Grace write it. Industrial espionage in the digital age is a fascinating theme and had a great deal of promise. Unfortunately, one-dimensional characters and formal, stilted dialog, along with a meandering storyline and tedious detail spelled its demise. Detail? Make that excruciating detail. Unless you're a Bill Gates wannabe, it's way too much. And then in other areas, maybe to be perverse, Grace treats readers like kindergartners, explaining his references as if none of us finished high school. I slogged through, even though I really wanted to chuck the book across the room, hoping it would improve. It didn't. So, if you think you might want to read Sypder Web, don't bother.

[Balthazar Lawson · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were a lot of confusing aspects to this book especially when it came to describing all the computer action. It attempted to be too detailed and was, therefore, confusing and in the end added nothing to the story. Cutting a lot of this out would have made it a more interesting read instead of the long drawn out experience it was. The ending was rather dumb and more like the ending of a weekly TV show than of a novel.

[Jonathan Gurney · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good effort at thriller writing, even if not in the Fredrick Forsyth class. Good plotting and authorcraft, plausible events and background. Just not quiet enough detail in some places, and limited substance to the characters.

The London-based parts of the action were irritating to a long-term Londoner. A villain flies into Heathrow, and is followed by undercover police beyond Customs. They report that he has got on a Piccadilly Line underground train "direct to Hyde Park Corner" so other agents go there ready to pick him up and follow him further. No! Piccadilly Line trains do not run non-stop to Hyde Park Corner station and terminate there. They all stop at every Piccadilly Line station on route, and then carry on through Central London to Cockfosters in the Northern suburbs. If someone was observed getting on a Piccadilly service from Heathrow they might be getting off anywhere along the line.

Grace does not seem to have been able to resist the recurrent temptation to include a boat chase down the Thames. Conan Doyle had one in his Sherlock Holmes series, which made much more sense back then, and any number of recent authors have copied the idea. Unsurprisingly, the villains never get away with it: the Thames twists and loops around while cars on roads can cut all the corners, and a boat is much easier for a helicopter to follow than any road vehicle. Anyone with any sense making a getaway by boat would dash directly over to the other bank and abandon the boat to take to the streets, getting a slight head start over pursuers who might have to cross the nearest bridge or direct backup to the spot, not head off downriver to take hours getting to the sea.

[Mad Leon · Rating 2 out of 5]

What could have been an engaging thriller, was just a lackluster attempt to describe industrial espionage. There was no character development so I cared little about Kilkenny and even less about his love interest (can't even recall her name). It seemed that friends were suddenly madly in love for no apparent reason. If this is #1, there will need to be a ton of improvement for future installments.

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

2022:
Re-read. It felt like a debut novel with potential, but some rough edges. The cring physical descriptions of some of the female characters bothered me and the casual loss of law enforcement life at the end. Violent scenes & rape reference - not for sensitive minds.

I loved that the author wasn't afraid to display conversative values as a backdrop to the novel. China is the clear enemy. Men are strong. People are high achieving and dedicated to serving their nation. Some parts felt dated - old fashioned technology is used and the businessmen all wear suits. The US military and government agencies work together seamlessly with extreme competence. In many ways, it was old-fashionedly wholesome.

Loved the in-depth local Michigan references!

2017:
Really 4.5 stars. Minus half a star because the opening was a little hard. Foreign chinese names as well as the use of multiple names for the same character (first & last used interchangeably) made it hard to get the characters straight and get into the plot. Around page 10, I started to get ahold of the plot. By page 50, the story was humming along. By page 80, I was hooked!

Since this is the first book in a series, here are the major character development points:
- Nolan Kilkenny is honorably discharged by the Navy after serving in the elite SEALS program. He has an interest and aptitude for computers and finds work at his father's MARC research facility on the campus of the University of Michigan.
- Nolan Kilkenny and Kelsey Newton grew up together as close friends and shared a similar gift for computers. Newton got her PhD and is now a Professor at U of M conducting research through the MARC facility. The Kilkenny and Newton families are close and have always desired their children to intermarry and produce grandchildren. Nolan and Kelsey have resisted pairing up and insisted they were just best friends. However, at the end of the novel, Kelsey admits romantic feelings which Nolan shares.

After reading a bunch of non-fiction books, it was thrilling to be immersed in a good fiction novel. This book came at a great time. The book was an easy read (after the opening) and a really fun adventure. I did skim occasional paragraphs that discussed technical computer stuff in detail. Not really my thing.

The author is a local boy. And many scenes are set in Ann Arbor - worth a read just for that! It felt very natural, like someone writing about what they know. Nothing forced or awkward in the plentiful local references. The writing itself was also very polished; it did not feel like an amateur novel. This is a local boy who can actually write!

One criticism of the writing - the author employed a tactic a few times in the book where the chapter leaves a character in some jeopardy. And when the character in next seen, they are in a different setting/scenario. The reader with the cliffhanger in mind has to read unrelated text before the previous event is finally referenced. This does create a feeling that life moves on and each man is responsible for his own survival. But I was annoyed each time it happened. I like immediate closure!

Most of the novel's environment and character actions (SEAL team, University of Michigan research, government authorities) had a true ring to it. It was easily believable based on my experience. The couple expectations were that a CIA employee could be bent so easily and that US/foreign intelligence agencies could cooperate and share information so seamlessly. I chalk this up to a necessary plot point and the author's wholesome naivety.

Additional thoughts: Towards the end of the book, law enforcement officers are unsentimentally killed in the line of duty. That always makes me sad. All non-officials went "rogue" at some point. Officials (except the traitors) followed orders and procedures, which seemed realistic even if not glamorous. The newspapers printed a full report of the espionage and boat crash (minus a few restricted details) the day following the arrests. It felt a bit unrealistic that they would have access to the full story so soon. Perhaps this is the author's wholesome innocent naivety, which I can appreciate.

The author doesn't write directly about politics, but he is clearly unapologetically conservative. Conservative characters in the book aren't automatically bad. :-) A republican character and a venture capitalist are mentioned briefly in the story without being vilified. When I read that, I suddenly realized how much I missed books that let conservative characters just be normal, without some horrible evil secret or intention. The hero is honest and straight-forward with his mission; nothing "morally complex" like the anti-heroes in many novels. Finding this book was like finding water in the desert. I didn't realize how much I needed it until I encountered it. This is what I hoped Newt Gingrich's fictional novels would be like, but sadly they weren't.

Two (premarital) sex scenes referenced with a bit of explicit imagery. Make your own judgment for age appropriateness. Adults will find this book innocent compared to most spy novels.

Published in 1999 - no cell phones in the story. Computer floppy disks & cassette tapes still being used!

[David Borthwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a bit of a slow starter; then took nearly half of the book to get to the meat of the story. Apart from that the book was interesting enough to continue with it. I will be reading more of this author.

[James Casey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good enough story but not one that intrigues me enough to want to read the rest of the series. The hero does not not really become involved in the story until the last quarter which is probably the best part. I need to be excited more along the way.
I can only give it a generous 3/5.

[Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun because much happens in MI.

[Barbara Bengston · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author gets technical in description of computer operations, but it was told in a way that most people would understand.

[JT · Rating 5 out of 5]

Solid thriller! Tight writing, plenty of technology minimal unexplanium.

[Bouchra Rebiai · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nolan Kilkenny was one of the first thriller/action characters I ever read. It was good to go back to the beginning of his story as a character.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are into computers this is a book for you, as well as the crime story

[_wiktoria_ · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[M.R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was very pleasantly surprised by this. I'm a hard case when it comes to spy-fi: all too often, the characters are cardboard and the dialog stinks. Not so here. This guy wirtes dialogue WAY better than the likes of Tom Clancy (thank heavens for that). Moreover, his IT geeks were completely credible characters (I've known many, and they're too often stereotyped). Plus, I'm from Chicago, and I know Michigan pretty well from years of trips to Union Pier, Benton Harbor and Ann Arbor. Not only was I gratified to see a geographical setting that's accurate and a university setting that made me happy because it was different, but the young professionals there were very appealing characters, too (although that romance was telegraphed almost from the beginning; I would have been just as happy if they'd remained friends and dated other people but still stayed confidants).

And that Lee Iacocca touch at the end was just hysterical! Good laugh there. Hey, I prefer Mustangs myself, but I wouldn't refuse a concept car, either.

Tom Grace managed an excellent command of the subject matter without ever once coming close to boring me to tears (I can't say that about a lot of high-tech spy-fi). Can't recommend this book highly enough. Oh, and it's a pretty fast read, too, though perhaps one shouldn't neceesarily go by me: I fairly inhale books). I'll be reading more of Tom Grace's stuff soon as I can lay my hands on it. Hurrah!

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of a disappointing read. When I bought this book in 2009 it was marketed as if it was newly published and to be fair, this edition was published in 2009. What was not clear at the time was that the book was originally written in 1998. Ordinarily, that would not pose much of a problem but for a book which centres its plot around high-tech computer stuff, what seemed high-tech at the time, is now fairly old-fashioned (which just shows how much computer technology has progressed even in the last decade). To counter this criticism the action sequences (car chase/crash; and power-boat chase along the Thames) are quite thrilling.
On the whole, a bit of a disappointment because of the way technology has developed over the past decade.

[Joe White · Rating 3 out of 5]

The technology dated to between 88-'95. The author as a writer either didn't have the depth of OS knowledge and application programming that he needed, or purposely obscured and dumb-ed down details for readers with less knowledge.

The author approached the characters and sex as if he were writing for high school level boys.

The espionage portions of the story were quite good, except for the ending being too dramatic.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of the book sets up the second half of the book - which is a good thing. But I need to warn you that the first half of the book is slow.

I like what the author does with his main characters... but at times this reads like a movie script treatment more than a stand-alone novel.

Yes, I'm aware it's the first book in a series - I'm curious to see where he goes from here.

[Jeff Dickison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fair computer-espionage book, was first by Grace. This is the second computer-espionage book I have read this week and I think I'm done with this genre for a while. Besides, my computer guru is my wife. She's not as good as the guys in this book, but then she's not a mastermind criminal nor a goverment agent. Anyway, I recommend the book to anyone interested in the computer-espionage genre.

[Margo Brooks · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a thriller with little thrill. It is hard to feel the fear in computer espionage when all the action comes from a curser on a computer screen. Then there was all the description of that curser. The steaks weren't high enough for the main characters and the descriptions too mundane to make me want to read another of these spy novels.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good spy-book. It's really fun b/c the author sets his characters from University of MI. The female was a UM swimmer! It's fun to read something with reference points that you have actually seen/been/experienced.

[Ralph McEwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is well put together the font and whiteness of the pages made this a easy book to read. The story line and characters actions did not require that you suspend disbelief. The interactions of the characters was realistic. I am looking forward to reading more of this authors works.

[Ron Holmes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first book by Tom Grace and the first one of his I have read. It is very interesting, almost believable, lots of twists and turns. Alas, not really any intimate relationships. It was a good first book.

[George Ladds · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want a good crime writer then look no further, this is a great introduction to the series. coming out of the navy seals nolan k goes to work at a high tec firm run by his dad. quickly he is sucked into a world of espionage. twists and turns a fast moving crime book.

[Benita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read. Nothing mindblowing, but if you like a spy story, this is good entertainment. Tom Grace also has a very relaxed writing style and it is easy to get into the story. His main characters were also very likeable

[Darinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first book in the Nolan Kilkenny thriller series. Fast-paced and entertaining.

[Iah · Rating 4 out of 5]

cool book this guy writes such easy to read books, they do tend to just end abruptly though. still an enjoyable read whil drinking cofee in my face cafe.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately you need a degree in computer science to get what's really going on and it leaves you a bit bored and thinking if you've picked up a textbook.

[Charley Nosswin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't like all the detail about the technical aspects; the blurb was far more focused on the action parts. In reality, this took up maybe 30% of the book, with the rest being filled with jargon.

[Adrian Wills · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't get on with this one. Had to give up after just a few chapters

[Elizabeth Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's not clear why Nolan ended up in London, but otherwise the book is interesting and reminds me of Clive Cussler and Tom Clancy.