Fault Line: A Novel Book

Silicon Valley: the eccentric inventor of a new encryption application is murdered in an apparent drug deal. Istanbul: a cynical undercover operative receives a frantic call from his estranged brother, a patent lawyer who believes he’ll be the next victim. And on the sun-drenched slopes of Sand Hill Road, California’s nerve center of money and technology, old family hurts sting anew as two brothers who share nothing but blood and bitterness wage a desperate battle against a faceless enemy.

Alex Treven has sacrificed everything to achieve his sole ambition: making partner in his high-tech law firm. But then the inventor of a technology Alex is banking on is murdered, the patent examiner who reviewed the innovation dies–and Alex himself narrowly escapes an attack in his own home. Off balance, out of ideas, and running out of time, he knows that the one person who can help him is the last person he’d ever ask: his brother.

Ben Treven is a military liaison element, an elite undercover soldier paid to “find, fix, and finish” high-value targets in the United States global war on terror.

Disenchanted with what he sees as America’s culture of denial and decadence, Ben lives his detached life in the shadows because the black ops world is all he really knows–and because other than Alex, whom he hasn’t spoken to since their mother died, his family is long gone.

But blood is thicker than water, and when Ben receives Alex’s frantic call he hurries to San Francisco to help him. Only then does Alex reveal that there’s another player who knows of the technology: Sarah Hosseini, a youngIranian American lawyer whom Alex has long secretly desired–and whom Ben immediately distrusts. As these three struggle to identify the forces attempting to silence them, Ben and Alex are forced to examine the events that drove them apart–even as Sarah’s presence, and her own secret yearnings, deepens the fault line between them.

A full-throttle thriller that is both emotionally and politically charged, Fault Line centers on a conspiracy that has spun out of the shadows and onto the streets of America, a conspiracy that can be stopped by only three people–three people with different worldviews, different grievances, different motives. To survive the forces arrayed against them, they’ll first have to survive one another.


From the Hardcover edition.

Teresa L. Jacobsen - Library Journal

Death by hit men isn't what Silicon Valley attorney Alex Treven had in mind when he agreed to sponsor a young inventor's piece of network-security software. But when the inventor and the patent office handler die in quick succession, Alex has enough survival sense to call his estranged big brother, Ben, a special-ops agent. Ben reluctantly comes to Alex's aid and finds himself entangled in something more sinister than a lucrative new invention would suggest. Beautiful, tech-savvy law associate Sarah Hosseini inadvertently gets caught up in the deadly situation and adds a touch of romance to this cyberthriller. The brothers have suffered greatly since tragedy destroyed their suburban family when they were teens; now they must overcome long-simmering resentments and band together, using their talents to outwit their unknown hunters. Intricate plotting and tech details make this thriller zip by. Eisler, who has training in covert operations and is well known for his John Rain series (e.g., Requiem for an Assassin), presents a winning first stand-alone work. Recommended for all popular collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ10/1/08.]