The Hanged Man's Song (Kidd and LuEllen) Hardcover – November 10, 2003 by John Sandford
Book 4 of 4: Kidd
 
Prey fans everywhere have embraced the return of Sandford's other charismatic hero, Kidd, artist, computer whiz, and professional criminal, and his sometime partner, sometime lover, LuEllen.
In The Hanged Man's Song, a superhacker friend of Kidd's named Bobby suddenly disappears from cyberspace, and Kidd knows that isn't a good sign. Then, when he goes to Bobby's house, Kidd finds him dead on the floor, his head bashed in and his laptop missing, and Kidd knows that really isn't a good sign. The secrets on that laptop are potent enough to hang Kidd and everybody else in Bobby's circle, just to start with, so there's no question that Kidd and LuEllen have to try to track it down, not to mention that Kidd would dearly love to get his hands on the man who killed Bobby. But before Kidd can get very far, the secrets start coming out anyway...and they're more staggering than even he had imagined. Because it's not just about the lives of a circle of friends and colleagues now, oh no, it's about something much, much bigger. And much, much scarier.
Filled with the atmosphere, characters, and exceptional drama that have made John Sandford one of America's best-loved thriller writers, The Hanged Man's Song is a masterpiece of suspense.
 
Amazon.com Review
Just about everybody knows John Sandford for his long and successful Prey series. But just as well written and maybe more fun are his Kidd books, of which this is the fourth. Kidd is a professional thief for the Internet age: a cyberprowler, a hacker extraordinaire. In The Hanged Man's Song, he gets word that one of his key contacts--a superhacker known only as Bobby, whom Kidd has never met but has relied on many times--has disappeared. Kidd and an old buddy, both of whom could be compromised by data in Bobby's files, go looking for him. Finding his brutally murdered body draws them into a Hitchcock-esque intrigue that eventually involves stolen government secrets, crooked politicians, and a rogue CIA agent who's as crafty as he is creepy.
While filling his tale with fascinating and authentic-sounding lore about the hacker subculture, identity theft, and security cracking, Sandford keeps the action brisk with plenty of white-knuckle chases, tense stakeouts, and hairsbreadth escapes. Couple that with a smart, agreeable narrator and a cast of vivid characters evoked with an old pro's ease, and you've got one winning thriller. --Nicholas H. Allison
From Publishers Weekly
This series of techno-suspense novels featuring artist, computer wizard and professional criminal Kidd (The Fool's Run; The Empress File; The Devil's Code) and his sometime girlfriend, cat-burglar LuEllen, are far fewer in number and less well-known than Sandford's bestselling Prey books. In this entry, Bobby, Kidd's genius hacker friend ("Bobby is the deus ex machina for the hacking community, the fount of all knowledge, the keeper of secrets, the source of critical phone numbers, a guide through the darkness of IBM mainframes"), goes offline for good when he is hammered to death by an intruder. Bobby's laptop is stolen, which is bad news for Kidd as several of his more illegal transactions may be catalogued on the hard drive. Kidd needs to find the computer, break the encryption and revenge Bobby's death. The trail leads from Kidd's St. Paul, Minn., art studio to heat-stricken rural Mississippi and on to Washington, D.C., where Kidd uncovers a government conspiracy that threatens the reputations and livelihood of most of the nation's elected representatives. One of the joys of the series is learning the tricks of computer hacking and basic burglary as Kidd and LuEllen take us to Radio Shack, Target, Home Depot and an all-night supermarket to buy ordinary gear, including a can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew, to use in clever, illegal ways. The action is as hot and twisted as a Mississippi back road, but the indefatigable Kidd eventually straightens it all out and exacts a sort of rough justice that matches his flexible moral code. The early entries in this series have aged badly because of the advances in technology, but this latest intelligent and exciting thriller proves a worthy addition to Sandford's overall body of work.
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