Rose Foster

It never ceases to amaze me what gems you can stumble upon when looking through the Library shelves. This is a BGS book that has never been borrowed from 2011 but it is awesome and I will be buying the next one in the series and swapping it over to SMS as this is a girl heroine centered novel.
Kirra is a bright Aussie teenager who is looking for a way to cheat on some maths homework when she stumbles across a competition online that asks her to crack the code. Kirra solves the code and the website disappears then one week later she is kidnapped by an underworld organisation known as The Industry.
She is tortured into agreeing to work for them cracking similar codes that have been embedded into the world's security systems.
Then suddenly another person joins her in her prison cell. Milo has cracked the code too and must also help the Industry. The two become friends but this means that the crime syndicate can now use them against each other to break codes. A suspense filled novel for older readers, I unfortunately guessed what was really going on with Milo right at the start, so was frustrated that it took Kirra so long to work it out herself.
Nevertheless, when she is "rescued " by a rival extraction team lead by Desmond, the book took off a bit in terms of loads of action - gunfights in cafes and on bridges - and lots of international travel.
One for fans of Divergent, Hunger Games and other girl heroine action novels. For older readers due to the torture aspect.… (meer)

Kirra Hayward is an ordinary sixteen year old - smarter than most, but otherwise completely anonymous. When she solves an unusual decrypting puzzle on the internet to fill in a moment of boredom at school, she has no idea of what she's letting herself in for.
Kidnapped by a shadowy organisation of mercenaries known only as The Industry, Kirra soon discovers how valuable her code-breaking skills are. And when she stubbornly refuses to help them, they decide to break her ... by any means at their disposal.
Kirra knows that to protect herself, she must trust no one, not even her fellow prisoner, Milo. But as time goes by she wonders if he is the only person she can rely on.… (meer)

Kirra Hayward is a year ten student at Freemont Grammar. She's very intelligent and has skipped ahead in maths and science, taking classes at year twelve level. The story starts with Kirra having a choice; do the Mr Gummer’s ridiculous maths project as a homework task or go online and cheat (to see if she can find something there that she can quickly copy). Whilst looking, she discovers a website entitled Crack The Code. At first she dismisses the whole thing but she accepts the invitation of the online puzzle when, as she is looking at it, a number jumps out at her. Quickly she sees other letters and numbers and before she realises she's come up with a fourteen-digit code. She submits her answer and is disappointed when nothing happens. Kirra she logs off and goes on to her next class but she comes to wish she hadn’t been so successful and just stuck with completing the boring task as she was expected to.
Her solution of the puzzle has been a signal to some criminals, part of a group called “The Industry”. The website has been set up by a man named Latham. He's part of The Industry. This is a network of people who will take on jobs for anyone willing to pay the price. They're all criminals but prefer terms such as contractor and they see their tasks as jobs not illegal operations. Kirra’s website entry has shown that she has special code-breaking abilities and “The Industry” is in need of people who have this skill.
Kirra is kidnapped on her way home from school, bundled onto a plane and flown half way around the world, where she imprisoned, drugged and manipulated into solving other codes by this organisation when Latham discovers that the best way to manipulating Kirra to help them is to threaten the life of another person.
This is where another code-breaker, eighteen year old Englishman Milo Franklyn, comes in. At least, she feels, she now has a companion in her imprisonment. At first, Kirra is wary when he shows up in her cell, but soon comes to find his company reassuring but there is disappointment ahead. Latham realises that he can use them against each other so they always give him the code when he asks.
It seems impossible Kirra will ever return to her ordinary suburban family and she can’t trust anyone!… (meer)

I was in the mood for some mindless reading so I picked up this YA thriller by Rose Foster, and was surprised by how much I liked it. The Industry focusses on Kirra, who solves an online puzzle and gets kidnapped so she can aid a criminal organisation in their illegal endeavours. In this book Foster describes a whole world of people who are part of The Industry - from Decoys whose job it is to distract local authorities while the real crime happens somewhere else, to intelligence agencies that keep track of everyone and everything, to the Assassins and Extractors who work the crimes. They have a training school, their own hospitals and news stations, all un-noticed by 90% of the population.

Kirra is hurled into this world and as a sixteen year old has a lot of idealistic views: The Industry must be backed by some government, and her Australian Government will surely be able to rescue her. At first I completely understood her reaction, but even after people repeatedly tell her that The Industry is something no one on the outside knows about, she persists in her stupid belief that she will be able to somehow and escape and go home. About midway through the book I started getting really annoyed at Kirra and totally understand Desmond's exasperation with her. I liked Kirra and hope she becomes a little more mature in the upcoming books.

The other character I really liked is Desmond - the Extractor who rescues Kirra from her captors and tries to protect her from the rest of The Industry. It is clear, however, that even though she may not be locked up, Kirra will be expected to break codes for the rest of her life and there is little chance of her ever escaping her fate. Desmond is nice to her and takes good care of her, and eventually we get to see his tough exterior melt away as he reveals that he is a caring person. I can't say the same for many of the other members of his crew though!

A great debut by an Australian author, The Industry is a good read that I enjoyed! I hope to continue the series and get to know all the characters a little better, and I think it will be fun to watch Kirra learn some skills in the next book, The Estate.… (meer)