Dot. Con

by Ken Layne

Out-of-work journalist Larry Jonestowne washes up in San Francisco, hoping to find an assignment during the Internet Gold Rush's final days. Sent to interview e-billionaire Thomas Sanders, he asks too many questions and loses the job ... and discovers that Sanders built his fortune on murder and theft. With no way to tell the story himself, Larry borrows the identity of his dead Mexican neighbour and becomes renegade Internet reporter Jesus Ramirez. But Sanders and his hired gang of corporate spies aren't so easily tricked. Larry and his misfit friends race through California trying to elude the gun-happy enemies of the mysterious Ramirez. (from publisher's synopsis)

310 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read, a little uneven at points, but a lovely time capsule of the late 1990s. I expect if it was published now it would be a different book - there are specifically some "fat person" jokes that are extremely dated and would be very hard to pull off in a modern context - but for a throwback to just how bloody weird the early public internet and the dotcom bomb were? This evoked it perfectly.