BROKEN GENIUS shares its title with another book, one that details the rise and fall of William Shockley, dubbed The Father of Silicon Valley. Like Shockley, series launch protagonist Will Parker is an electronics wizard, but Parker became a billionaire in his 20s. In this astounding debut, Parker’s fortune bursts like the dotcom bubble, not by worthless stocks but during Japan’s 2011 Fukushima earthquake and tsunami. When Parker had planned to arrive in Japan, he’d “close a deal that would put [his] name alongside Jobs, Gates, and Zuckerberg.”

Parker’s deal was to sell his innovative quantum computer to Fukushima Semiconductor. The night his private jet was to whisk him to Japan, his company’s valuable livestreaming video-messaging system is hacked. College student Kate Mason has been kidnapped and mutilated --- while alive. Videos of the gruesome torture-murder are transmitted by Parker’s technology, but the location-tracking feature fails. His company CastorNet is doomed, its security features worthless.

"This classic good-versus-evil, high-tech novel will intrigue computer geeks and a squad of Comic-Con fans, along with anyone who enjoys a well-crafted thriller."

A genius broken by nightmares of Mason’s livestreamed homicide, Parker becomes a special agent for the FBI’s Cyber Division and is “called for any major case with a tech angle.” The FBI investigates the murder of convention-vendor Roger Caplan, finding traces of radioactive material matching the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown: the same radioactive fingerprint that contaminated the Fukushima Unicorn quantum computer prototype, one that makes a traditional computer “look like an abacus.”

Dragoniis is “the most skilled and prolific hacker in Asia” and is after the Unicorn --- as are other nefarious contenders, including Kremlin criminals. “Every cyber warfare tactic they’d employed would be elevated to unstoppable with a quantum computer.” Fortunately for the world’s salvation, Parker teams up with brilliant homicide detective Dana Lopez and dogmatic by-the-book FBI agent Thomas Decker. The trio chases Dragoniis through a crowded Comic-Con gathering in scenes reminiscent of those in John Grisham’s 1993 film adaptation of The Firm, differing only in that the good guys chase bad.

This classic good-versus-evil, high-tech novel will intrigue computer geeks and a squad of Comic-Con fans, along with anyone who enjoys a well-crafted thriller.

After a corporate technology career in Ontario, Canada, the author transitioned to education and writing. An avid fan of Comic-Con and escape-room games, Drew Murray honors the key tenet of other talented authors: Write what you know. Eh?