we've injured a reviewer

(we'd remind readers that it is improper to feel any joy over a physical injury, even when sufferer is a literary critic...)


From today's New York Newsday:

"Matt Richtel's "Hooked," a first novel by a syndicated cartoonist and New York Times technology writer, takes the cell-phone issue by the horns. Here laptops and Palm Pilots themselves are the agents of doom, tools of evil corporate warlords in their quest to subjugate humanity and its credit cards. From the opening scene in which he narrowly escapes a bomb blast in a San Francisco cafe, med-student-turned-slacker Nat Idle will put aside the freelance article he's writing on how cell phone radiation affects the brain to investigate a series of fires, suspicious deaths and acupuncture sessions gone bad. Quickly the trail turns towards his dead girlfriend Annie, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who "died" five years earlier in a boating accident. Though his characters are thin and his plot somewhat dizzying, Richtel's gift for one-liners undercuts his cheesier moments. In fact, I was so drawn in at one point that I had my nose in the book while walking across my garage. I tripped on a stray skateboard and smacked my head on the garage floor. So maybe all these high-tech computer viruses and cell phone schemes are overkill. You can still knock somebody out with a novel."