Peter Carey

"From the two-time Booker Prize winner: a masterful, exceedingly timely new novel--at once dark, suspenseful, and seriously funny--that takes us on a journey to the place where the cyber underworld of radicals and hackers collides with international power politics. When an internet virus throws open the gates at thousands of American prisons, the hacker turns out to be an unlikely young Australian woman. Has she declared cyber war on the United States...

Che is a precocious young boy raised in isolated privilege by his New York grandmother. Yearning for his famous outlaw parents—radical 1960s activists who are now among the FBI’s most wanted—he’s denied all access to television and the news. But he takes hope from his long-haired teenage neighbor, who predicts, “They will come for you, man. They’ll break you out of here.”

And one afternoon, the prediction appears to come true. Soon

...

Irene Bobs loves fast driving. Her husband is the best car salesman in southeastern Australia. Together they enter the 1954 Redex Trial, a weeks-long endurance contest of a car race that circles the entire continent. With them is their lanky, fair-haired navigator: deposed quiz show champion and failed schoolteacher Willie Bachhuber. If they win the Redex, the Bobs name alone will get them a dealership, and Willie will have recharged a life currently...