Killer Bytes by Alan Williams

Killer Bytes by Alan Williams

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Wil Jackson is a tech blogger, self-confessed geek and generally mostly harmless. He is therefore somewhat surprised when the police turn up on his doorstep asking why his last interviewee - an investment banker - has been killed in an explosion. However, this proves to be just the first of a string of gruesome murders and when the killer starts sending taunting messages via the internet it falls to Wil to use all of his skills to find the connection between the apparently unrelated victims.

This an engaging and absorbing first novella from author and blogger Alan Williams. The plot rattles along, with the mystery being unravelled as the corpses pile up. It is refreshing to read a detective story where the use of the internet is handled realistically without being belaboured. There is a touch of wish-fulfilment at work as well, as the hero works from a fantastic sounding hi-tech shed in his garden and begins an affair with a glamorous politician.

It's a short book, but it left me wanting more and I hope the author returns to these characters soon!



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Beneath the Conquest of the Fall of the Rise of the Planet of Apes

I had high hopes for this film, but unfortunately it makes less sense than the original 1970s version (the one with time travel and atomic bomb worshipping mutants). The CGI work on the main character Caesar, as played by Andy Serkis of Gollum fame, is fantastic in close up but it all seems to go to pot when the apes start bouncing around the trees like Spiderman for no readily apparent reason. The acting and plotting is rubbish too - the villainous English (naturally) CEO of the evil genetic research lab is particularly bad, dammit!

Avoid.