Why, for instance, is he building a Gatsby-like mansion next door to the former site of the government’s notorious Montauk Project? It goes without saying that Ice is cold, intensely secretive and vengeful, but he could also be something more. What’s more, nobody seems to know who provided the original seed money to the company’s founder, a computer whiz named, like some James Bond villain, Gabriel Ice. While other computer businesses tank, hashlingrz seems to be flourishing and, it would appear, secretly siphoning off funds to a dummy organization in the Mideast. The first of those dark places is a sinister dot.com called hashslingrz. More than anything else, though, Maxine is fearless, and in “Bleeding Edge,” this super-accountant with a Beretta will soon find herself exploring the dark “scumscapes” where “petty fraud becomes grave and often deadly sin.” But somehow I still forget to fondle material or study the tags, and sometimes,’ lowering her voice and pretending to look around for disapproval, ‘I have even. “ ‘Should be written into my DNA, I know. At one point, she grows friendly with a WASPy shopaholic named Cornelia: Maxine is an independent fraud investigator, 30-something and good-looking, at ease with all kinds of people, and as quick with a comeback or wisecrack as any true New Yorker. On nice mornings in 2001, Maxine Tarnow, recently separated from her husband, Horst, walks her two young sons to school. Still, as spring passes into summer and summer approaches fall, our anxiety grows and intensifies. All are brilliantly written in Pynchon’s characteristically revved-up, even slightly over-revved style - a joy to read, though the techno-babble of various computer geeks can take SOME getting used to. Nonetheless, many of those pages are outrageously funny, others are sexy, touchingly domestic, satirical or deeply mysterious. No screaming comes across the sky, as it did in “Gravity’s Rainbow,” yet Thomas Pynchon’s latest novel begins just as ominously: “It’s the first day of spring 2001.” What could be more ordinary, sound more peaceful? But “Bleeding Edge” is set in New York City, and the looming shadow of 9/11 touches every page.
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