Diana Highsmith never leaves the confines of her property. Ever since a mountain-climbing accident in Switzerland a year ago claimed the life of her boyfriend, she’s suffered from a crippling agoraphobia. Fortunately Diana’s skills as an excellent computer hacker mean that she’s able to earn a living in computer security with her business partner Jake. Her, Jake and her boyfriend Daniel were once mischief makers who were just deciding to go straight and set up their company providing security to businesses when Daniel was killed. Diana conducts all of her meetings in Other World, an online virtual reality program where her avatar, Nadia Varata is her ‘face’ to the outside world. Meanwhile Diana herself is barricaded in the office upstairs in the house that once belonged to her parents, manning the security cameras and jumping out of her skin every time her intruder alert Klaxon goes off – even when it’s just the mailman.
In Other World, Diana has two particular friends that she mostly trusts, PWNED who seeks to bring down dodgy medical scams and Grob, a mysterious character who seems to understand her personal phobias. He uses a voice synthesizer and although he often seeks her out, Diana doesn’t always return his messages. However when her bubbly and confident sister Ashley goes missing from an event being broadcast online where Ashley was dressed as Diana’s avatar Nadia, Diana has to change her ways.
She has to step outside to investigate Ashley’s disappearance when the police won’t take her seriously. When she does it becomes apparent that even her amazingly powerful security systems have been breached and there are beacons broadcasting her location and key loggers on her laptop. Of her two online friends, PWNED and Grob, Diana has to choose which one might most likely be the most trustworthy and offer her some help – because one is not what they seem and should she make the wrong mistake, everything might end in diaster.
Come And Find Me is a gripping psychological thriller that explores a very real phobia that some people live with every day, without the means of income that Diana has. She conducts almost her entire life behind the four walls of her home. She has turned a room upstairs into her office where she shops for food and clothes online, runs her internet security business and has Skype based therapy sessions. Every day Diana attempts to step outside and walk the perimeter of her property. If she succeeds she takes a pebble from the ground and adds it to a collection she has, marking the amount of times she has managed to be successful.
In her previous life, before the death of Daniel, Diana was a computer hacker. But she’d begun to make some noises about going straight and although Daniel, who enjoyed being an online thorn in companies’ side, showed reluctance at first, he then warmed to the idea and he, Diana and their friend Jake talked of setting up their own security company. After Daniel’s death, they used the life insurance policy to start the business and it’s growing in success and prestige. Companies trust Nadia Varata and they want her on board when their security is breached by other hackers. Diana, as Nadia, conducts all her business meetings in Other World, which is basically Second Life by another name. Nadia has an ‘office’ which looks exactly like Diana’s and companies meet her here to discuss their needs.
When her sister goes missing, Diana finds that this is the one problem she cannot solve from the safety and security of her office. And her world is rocked further when that safety and security is not all she has assumed it was. She has to take matters into her own hands to attempt to find her sister, who she fears has been kidnapped by someone who may’ve been looking for her, given that Ashley was dressed as Nadia at an event that was well publicized in the online community.
Diana’s agoraphobia remains an issue for most of the book but it seems that when she does need to really put herself out there to find Ashley, it does start to evaporate. I expected much more of a mental struggle with her panic attacks and her extreme fear but it became sporadic and eventually almost disappeared all together in a very short period of time. I could live with that as it was necessary to the advancement of the plot and it stood to reason that once Diana was motivated enough to step outside that her fears might start to fall away as she focused on finding her sister, but what I couldn’t particularly get past was who turned out to be the mastermind behind the problems in her life, both with her sister disappearing, the trackers in her computers and the reason that some of her clients were backing away from her investigating their security breaches. That required a suspension of disbelief greater than I could manage.
For probably over three quarters of this novel, I was utterly hooked. The writing, the premise, the characterisation, everything, had sucked me right in. I loved the idea of someone living out their whole life online. It’s not something that’s new – Second Life has been an inspiration behind episodes of quite a few TV shows and probably some movies as well. I was fascinated with Diana’s agoraphobia and what had triggered it. I was laying in bed, in a deathly quiet house, slowly getting just a little bit freaked out when Diana discovered that even with all her expertise, someone had placed trackers in her laptop. But then as the plot advanced further and Diana began to unearth who was at the bottom of it (or actually, they more like kidnapped her and informed her) I started to lose interest. It was actually quite disappointing and I found myself becoming more disinterested towards the end of the book, no longer turning pages with ferocity but more skimming and flicking until everything unfolded and we were at the end.
A very, very promising start – Ephron can clearly write and set up a thriller but it just seems to lack that real punch of an ‘Oh my GOD!’ sort of ending that totally leaves you breathless and satisfied, that feeling you get when everything has worked out for you with the book and the ending has utterly blown you away with its unexpectedness and brilliance.