Right, so I initially gave this four stars and figured I'd move on. Then the bastard thing refused to leave my brain. Months later I'm still thinking about it - not the characters, not the plot beats, but the core idea that Grumley's built everything around. And that sticky quality, that ability to haunt you long after you've forgotten the specifics? That counts for something serious.
Grumley writes like someone who's read every airport thriller ever published and then thought "okay but what if the surveillance state actually won." It's got that propulsive crime-novel pacing (tight, efficient, zero fat) but layered with near-future tech that feels close enough to be genuinely unnerving. The speculative core isn't flashy. It's not time travel or aliens. It's just... what if the cameras already see everything and we're only now realising what that means.
The plot moves like a proper thriller should. International intrigue, shadowy power plays, twists that land because Grumley's structured it well. Characters are functional rather than deep - the specialist's competent, the genius is appropriately brilliant and morally flexible, everyone else does their job without demanding much attention. Normally I'd complain about that, but here it works. You're not here for psychological depth. You're here because the ideas are doing violence to your sense of privacy and the future.
Six months on, I keep circling back to it. Every time I see another headline about facial recognition or data aggregation or AI ethics, there's this quiet "oh fuck" moment where I remember Grumley got there first and made it feel inevitable. It's the sneaky kind of book that grows in your head after you've finished, which is exactly what good speculative fiction should do.
Perfect for anyone who lives in crime novels but wants a sci-fi edge without committing to full genre deep-dive.
Quietly ambitious, deeply satisfying, and better the longer it sits with you. I was an idiot the first time around. This one's a keeper.