F2F

Phillip Finch writes: "There are 12 million Americans who connect their computers to telephone lines in order to use on-line networks, bulletin boards and data services. I want this book to scare every one of them." And it should.

Both the villain and the hero of this suspense novel are computer freaks, who spy on people through an electronic bulletin board, using their hacking skills to uncover their subjects' most intimate secrets. When a murder threat appears on a San Francisco bulletin board, most users of the system consider it an ugly prank. But when one of them, Jane Regalia, a divorcee living in an isolated cabin, tries to argue with its author, code-named Snowflake, she is shaken by the warning "You have been noticed." Meanwhile, a member of Jane's on-line women's group, filmmaker Kate Lavin, is mourning her computer wizard ex-husband's creepy obsession with electronic snooping. She finds comfort in a new documentary and in a new love, a handsome yachtsman who docks near her houseboat.

At the time, the police are stymied by a series of brutal homicides with no discernible link, and strangely, Kate's name and address appear on one of the victims' computers. And it seems that Snowflake's threats are becoming real...

F2F is a taut and terrifying tale of random violence—all the more compelling because it could be true.