Product Description

John Law is a man full of secrets. People call him the Cryptographer, or the Codemaker. He is mysterious and charming, the world's first quadrillionaire, the inventor of an unbreakable code, of a new form of electronic money. As a man, he is admired and distrusted more than most. Tax inspector Anna Moore's talent is for getting clients to talk. She is good at what she does, one of the best. So when the Revenue assigns John Law as Anna's new client, her first task is to discover just what it is he's trying to hide...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #201730 in Books
• Published on: 2004-07-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 264 pages

Review
"'A supremely elegant and ambiguous thriller.' Sunday Times; 'A remarkable poetic imagination.' Independent on Sunday"

About the Author
Tobias Hill is a poet and novelist. Underground, his first novel, was published to great acclaim in 1999. A former poet in residence at London Zoo, Tobias Hill is a Visiting Fellow at Sussex University.

Customer Reviews

Fascinating but flawed
Having read and greatly enjoyed 'Love of Stones' by the same author I didn't hesitate to buy 'The Cryptographer'. While enjoying it in many ways and not regretting reading it, I still felt it could have been so much better.

First the good news. The prose is beautiful, evocative and poetic and reveals an author of insight and great imagination. The plot, set some decades into the future, offers up an exciting and thought-provoking view of what may be not far around the corner for all of us. There is much that strikes home especially relating to the nature of integrity and sincerity and the role of money in our lives. The cryptographer himself is a Great Gatsby style of character with much of his enigmatic allure.

The not so good. The book struck me as rather sparse. The future world is drawn in outline rather than detail. The relationships are sometimes simplistic and not fully explored. The plot tended to stretch credulity too much : would the world's richest man's tax anomalies be investigated by a single Inland Revenue inspector going for a chat with the man himself (who then of course is strongly attracted to her) rather than a team of inspectors wrestling with an army of accountants and never getting near the great man? Ultimately (and not without some irony considering the themes of the book) it didn't ring true.

That said, I would in spite of everything recommend this book. Read it and judge for yourself. There is certainly enough to be admired in there, a mixture of beguiling writing and evocative ideas. This is clearly a most talented writer and I will seek out his future offerings. It's just that instead of good it could have been great.

Great atmosphere, absent plot
This book is well-written and Tobias Hill's writing is closer to poetry than prose, building an atmosphere which is extremely real and intense.

But when it comes to structure and plot - this book is totally weak. It's not a thriller, as it is described on the cover, and it lacks any significant story. Plus, it really beggars belief at times - If tax inspectors carry out their work like the protagonist does, then they'd hardly get anything done. And I doubt that clients would be so friendly and so easily approachable, receiving tax inspectors at home!!!Very very very unlikely.

Looks like the poetry is achieved at the expense of the story-line. Basically, this book is like a ball of candy-floss: interesting and full of colour to look at, but it fizzles down to nothing in the mouth.

Moore's Law...
I found this book difficult to judge - I read both previous reviews on Amazon which were positive, to gauge the views of others. I've never read anything by Hill before - I hadn't even heard of him until I spotted this book which looked interesting on Dublin Airport's bookshelf - I was looking forward to a novel about codes and cryptography, but the book is not about this.

The main characters Anna Moore and John Law dominate ( I couldn't resist the title for my review - apologies to all for poor pun). I'm the type of reader who likes things to happen at a fast pace - you won't get this in Hill's book. It's more about character and description. No doubt it is well written - the prose is easy for me (an infrequent reader of novels) and will appeal to those who look for style as well as substance in books.

I still don't know whether I liked this book or not. I didn't dislike it, but was not impressed by it either. One item that left an impression on me - I turned over the last page to read on expecting more, only to find that the book had ended and I was reading the acknowledgements. It left me with an "un-finished" feel.