Conspiracy.Com: A Novel

by R.J. Piñeiro

It takes almost 300 pages for the Criminal Investigation Division of the Internal Revenue Service to get the bad guys in this tepid remake of The Firm , but when they finally do, it's enough to convince you that these wolves in accountants' clothing are the scariest guys in town. It would be better to pay taxes on every cent of your income than bring them down on you. Murder a bunch of innocent people? They'll hardly notice. But try to cheat the government by diverting IRS funds offshore and evading taxes on your ill-gotten gains? Now that's a crime! When SoftCorp hires Michael Ryan, fresh out of Stanford, and lures him to Austin with plenty of perks and promises of more to come, he has no idea that his boss and some higher-ups in the company's only client--the IRS--are lining their pockets with government wealth. But when a dogged FBI agent goes solo to tie Softcorp to the murder of one of her own and finds herself thwarted by higher-ups in her own agency, she partners with Michael and his wife to uncover the conspiracy and save the day. Of course, she has to call in the CID to do it, but by that time the reader has spent so much time in the virtual reality program Michael created to make catching tax cheats easier that it's all a blur of bytes and bits. R.J. Pineiro's real talent is for making complicated technology understandable, but that's not enough to turn this into a read for anyone who's not halfway there already. --Jane Adams

Genres: Fiction

320 pages, Hardcover

First published April 14, 2001

About the author

Born in Cuba and raised in Central America, R.J. Pineiro spent several years in the midst of civil wars before migrating to the United States in the late 1970s, first to Florida to attended Florida Air Academy in Melbourne. There, RJ earned a pilot's license and high school diploma in 1979, before heading to Louisiana for college.

R.J. earned a degree in electrical engineering from Louisiana State University in 1983 and joined the high-tech industry in Austin Texas, working in computer chip design, test, and manufacturing.

In the late 1980s R.J. began studying to become a novelist. Reading everything from classical literature to contemporary novels, R.J.'s love of storytelling became uncontrollable. Using an aging personal computer, R.J. decided to launch a writing career.

R.J.'s first published work, SIEGE OF LIGHTNING, a novel about a sabotaged space shuttle, was released by Berkley/Putnam in May of 1993. A second novel, ULTIMATUM, about a second Gulf War scenario, was released the following year, 1994, by Forge Books, which went on to publish R.J.'s next 12 novels over the following 13 years.

In 2015, R.J. teamed up with TV News military analyst Colonel David Hunt to kick off the "Hunter Stark Book Series." The first book in the series, WITHOUT MERCY, about ISIS gaining acquiring nuclear weapons, was released on 3.7.17. The second book, WITHOUT FEAR, about the war in Afghanistan, was released on 8.7.18

​In 2017, R.J. also teamed up with New York Times bestselling author Joe Weber. The result is ASHES OF VICTORY, a novel of global terrorism and international conflict released by Ignition Books on 9.3.18

In 2018, R.J. penned a nineteenth novel, AVENUE OF REGRETS, a mystery revolving around sex trafficking and domestic abuse released on 11.16.18

R.J. is married to L.M. Pineiro, an artist and jewelry designer. They have one son, Cameron & Daughter-in-Law Sarah, and two crazy dogs, Coco and Zea.

Reviews

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well written with lots of knowledge and research. It started off a bit slow for me but then got to a point where I couldn't put it down.

[Eve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent cyber-thriller!

[Lee Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable B Movie type thriller. Far fetched in places, but still very readable. It kept me turning pages and rooting for the Ryans and Karen.

[Lana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this one, at least in part because the IRS (or part of it) is the bad guy, and because it's set in Austin TX, so there were a few references to places I've been or seen.

Good action, though it's easy to wonder why the hero and his wife didn't see the trouble coming. I mean, really? The FBI agent is a little off in the head, in my opinion, and not quite real. But humans are not quite real, if you ever get the opportunity to be on the outside looking in at someone's motivations.

Apropos of nothing, the author writes as R J Pineiro, and his first name is Rogelio. I love the way that sounds rolling off my tongue, but then I grew up in South Texas. As a weird quirk, I might even be more likely to buy a book with Rogelio on the cover. :D

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm slightly embarrassed that I didn't just put this down and not finish it. In my defense, I was bored. It's a thriller, but not a page-turner. I managed to understand it without really understanding the vast amounts of programming and virtual reality mumbo jumbo. It was not worthy of one star, because it was mildly interesting, but it has swearing and "scenes" I wouldn't recommend it.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you liked The Firm, then you will like this book. Very similiar plot although it got a beef up in the technical department, which I enjoyed.