Description de l’éditeur
When Gaby Bailleux released the Angel Worm into Australia's prison system, allowing hundreds of asylum seekers to walk free, she also let the cat out of the bag. The Americans ran the prisons, like so many parts of her country, and so the doors of some 5000 American places of incarceration also opened. Both countries' secrets threatened to pour out.
Was this a mistake, or had Gaby declared cyberwar on the US? Felix Moore - known to himself as 'Australia's last serving left wing journalist' - has no doubt. Her act was part of the covert conflict between Australia and America. That conflict dates back to the largely forgotten Battle of Brisbane in 1943, stretches forward to America's security interests in Pine Gap and commercial interests everywhere, and has as its most outrageous act the coup of 1975. Funded by his property-developer mate Woody Townes, Felix is going to write Gaby's biography, to save her, and himself, and maybe his country.
But how to get Gaby to co-operate? What role does her film-star mother have to play? And what, after all, does Woody really want?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
From two-time Booker winner Carey comes this complex new novel, focusing on the author's native Australia, but exploring themes of journalistic freedom and Internet ethics. At the center of the book is the young Australian Gabrielle Baillieux, who releases a virus called the Angel Worm in the computer system that controls the Australian prison system, releasing thousands of prisoners throughout Australia and, inadvertently, in the U.S. The move could be construed as an act of terrorism, a bold stroke in the fight for human rights, or just a geeky plan gone awry. Journalist Felix Moore is hired to write Gabrielle's story sympathetically, to avoid her extradition. In the process, he spends time with her mother, the actress Celine Baillieux, whom he had previously known in college. Looking back through the two women's lives, Felix also explores Australia's history since WWII, confusing himself but also educating readers about the Land Down Under. Throughout the book, Carey's cartwheeling prose and dazzling intellect can be challenging to keep up with, but the book is worth the effort.
