Journalist and history professor David Shafer's debut novel concerns three 30-somethings as they attempt to find meaning in their lives by pursuing the Committee, a cabal of corporate industrialists and media barons who want to privatize all the world's data in hopes of selling it back to the highest bidders--whether they're individuals, corporations or governments.
Members of the resistance front, Dear Diary, choose silly code names like Dixon Ticonderoga so they can anonymously pursue their plan of freeing humanity with new, plant-based computers that are not yet fully understood. In order to join the revolutionaries, the three protagonists must each take an eye test, which opens their minds to a new level of connectedness--essential to take on the Committee.
Leila Majnoun is a Persian-American who travels through underdeveloped nations looking to help women receive education and medical supplies. Leo Crane works with kids at a daycare facility, slacks daily, and has a decent trust fund, along with bipolar disorder. Self-hating self-help guru Mark Devreaux (Leo's childhood friend) works for the Committee, and could be Dear Diary's way in, if Leila and Leo can convince him that he's sold out to an evil cabal.
Blending elements of spy, science-fiction and literary genres, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is a fun debut full of rich characterization and a just-complex-enough plot that takes place in evocative locales like Myanmar, Oregon and London. The action never overwhelms the interaction within and between the main protagonists, making for an engaging read. --Rob LeFebvre, freelance writer and editor