Digital Deception

When I entered on duty at the CIA in 1985, messages were carried in pneumatic tubes whooshing through Headquarters. Cable traffic was printed by a Registry and delivered to offices—unless it was the weekend and you had the duty. Then you had to go pick up the copies yourself.

Also, I used a Wang word processor. (Who else remembers those?)

Fast forward thirty years. I'm one of the founders of the CIA’s Directorate of Digital Innovation. 

Initially an analyst, I spent the bulk of my career in the Directorate of Science and Technology focused on signals intelligence collection and technical innovation including machine translation. (Yes, there was a time before Google Translate.)

As well as working counterintelligence and counterdrug targets from the tech side, I was the executive officer for the CIA’s R&D office, which eventually became the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA.)

This background underpins my presentation on "Digital Deception" this Friday at the Killer Nashville writer’s conference. 

Digital Deception means using online technological tools, platforms and messaging to create false beliefs and perceptions—either by accident or intentionally. It spans the spectrum from fake Yelp reviews to content suppression to deepfakes and media manipulation.

I’ll cover what digital deception looks like, how it affects us and what it means for writers in terms of plotting and research. 

FYI--THE HIDDEN LIGHT OF MEXICO CITY was written while I was still at the CIA. Perhaps that’s why secret codes and digital deception techniques are key to the plot. 

As elections loom, an attorney discovers that a ruthless druglord is poised to buy Mexico’s presidency with deep state help. The book was longlisted for the 2020 Millennium Book Award.

#excerpt

KILLING MOON by Jo Nesbo

This is Book 13 in the Harry Hole series set in Oslo, Norway, one of my favorite cities in the world. No surprise that this is one of my favorite mystery series, too. 

One of the page-turning charms of the Harry Hole series is that the crimes in the book often connect to Harry himself. He’s on a perpetual roller coaster of addictions—alcohol, opioids, a woman named Rakel. He’s been tortured by criminals, shot by a drug addict, etc. and readers are entranced by his physical similarity to Jo Nesbo himself.  

In KILLING MOON, at this point in Harry’s life, his wife Rakel is dead. Murdered by Bjorn, one of Harry’s best friends, who found that his child was really fathered by Harry. Bjorn killed himself, too, leaving his wife and top cop Katrine to raise the child alone.

So where is Harry? Well, he’s in Los Angeles, trying to drink away the pain of his accumulated betrayals and losses. He runs into Lucille, a 70-something down-on-her-luck B movie actress who borrowed money from a Mexican cartel to invest in a movie that went bust. 

Back in Oslo, two women are found dead. Suspicion falls on a wealthy developer who thinks the police are biased against him. He hires Harry to investigate privately.

Harry agrees but only to pay the cartel and save Lucille. It’s a convoluted way to get him back to Oslo but adds a countdown drama to the investigation.

In Oslo, Harry creates his own investigative squad using familiar faces: Oystein the taxi driver and childhood friend, Truls the dirty cop on suspension, and psychologist Aune who is dying of cancer. Their actions are strictly unofficial but get results. 

There are multiple points of view in the book including that of the shadowy killer whose real name we don’t know until the very end. The story is told so ingenuously that he could be any one of a number of characters who act suspiciously. 

Like all the Harry Hole books, the climax is stunning, no thread is left untied (including the reason for the title), and we get a hint about Harry’s next case.

If you haven’t read the previous books, don’t worry. There’s enough backstory to read KILLING MOON as a standalone. This is immersive, heart-pounding prose written by an absolute master of crime fiction.

Thank you for sharing your time with me. 

Stay in touch, browse my website, and happy reading!

 All the best, 

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