Crime novelist and comic book author Charlie Huston once again melds pulp and tech in his upcoming thriller Skinner. The titular character — named after the Skinner box he was raised in — is a particularly effective “asset protector” whose brutal methods have left him on the fringes of the intelligence community.

 

Now, an ornate and evolving cyber-terrorist attack is about to end that long exile. His asset is Jae, a roboticist with a gift for seeing the underlying systems violently shaping a new era of global guerrilla warfare.

 

At the root of it all is a young boy, the innocent seed of a plot grown in the slums of Mumbai. Brought to flower, that plot will tip the balance of world power in a perilous new direction.