The Mercury

Human traffic in cybercity

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camp’s archives. Little does she know how the request – and her reaction to it – will alter the course of her life and career.

Daniele Barbo is a computer genius on trial for hacking and fraudulent activities.

The only son of deceased billionair­e, Barbo was kidnapped at the age of seven. When his parents refused to pay the ransom, the kidnappers responded by sending them Daniele’s ears and nose, disfigurin­g the youngster for life and scarring him in many ways other than physically.

Becoming a recluse in order to hide his face from the stares of strangers, Barbo creates an alternativ­e, online version of Venice, Carnivia.com.

It is a clean, untainted version of his beloved city in which people can meet and talk in absolute secret – a world which is unhackable to even the best IT and government intelligen­ce agency experts.

By making Carnivia impenetrab­le, Barbo must now deal with trumped-up charges against him which his enemies hope will destroy him, leaving Carnivia defenceles­s – or so they think.

The search for answers to the young woman’s murder inexplicab­ly binds all three main players’ lives together.

It is a path which takes them back to the past, to the covert plans of the US government and its part in the Bosnian genocide.

It also catapults Tapo, Boland and Barbo head-first into the dark heart of human traffickin­g – and points the finger of responsibi­lity squarely at top-level players in the US government and the Catholic church.

Fast paced, gripping and unput-downable, this first book in Holt’s Carnivia trilogy is a must for lovers of spy novels, thrillers and murder mysteries. HE BOOKER prize-winning author Howard Jacobson is to rewrite Shakespear­e’s play,

in a bid to tackle its anti-Semitism.

The Jewish writer has vowed to re-explore some of the more debated aspects of the Shakespear­e play. Opinions vary over the play’s protagonis­t, Jewish money-lender Shylock, who seeks “a pound of flesh” from a Christian merchant who is unable to repay him.

Shylock loses both his fortune and his daughter at the end of the play, and is forced to convert to Christiani­ty.

Embarking upon the project, Jacobson vowed not to shy away from those central aspects of the text. “Mr Shakespear­e probably never met a Jew, the Holocaust had not yet happened, and anti-Semitism did not have a name,” he said.

“Can one tell the same story today where every reference carries a different charge?”

He added: “For an English novelist, Shakespear­e is where it all begins. For an English novelist who also happens to be Jewish,

is where it all snarls up. ‘Who is the merchant and

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