D C Downey

Offshored was my first book by DC Downey/Chris Myers and I truly enjoyed it. Both main characters are very likeable (not only) because of their imperfections. Savannah struggles with insecurities based on her autism and mixed ethnical background. Although she is very smart she sometimes makes stupid or rash decisions. Cole's over-protectiveness of Savannah often seems like he doesn't trust her abilities but can be explained by his previous traumatic experience. Ultimately he is a very good partner for Savannah whom she can trust.
The story contains many technical details and although I'm not a science geek it wasn't hard for me to understand what was going on. Tesla's inventions are really fascinating and I loved how they were connected with the story.
The author tackles political, economical and social topics like racism, sexism, companies who offshore their businesses to Asia where they can exploit cheap laborers and the sometimes sinister acts of certain agencies to gain more power and/or to hush up things. In my opinion it is always good when a story isn't simply entertaining but also used to expose and criticize grievances.
I'll certainly look out for the next Kinlaw/Bainbridge book.… (meer)

Offshored is the first book I’ve read by D C Downey. It won’t be the last!

The story is like many other political thrillers that focus on an FBI or CIA agent trying to do the right thing despite strong resistance from entrenched self-interested political leaders. Where Downey’s book differs is that the main character, Savannah Kinlaw, is an autistic/savant and biracial women. She struggles with the condition that causes her social awkwardness and fosters a compulsion to speak her mind no matter how inappropriate the timing of the statement may be.

Savannah has great spatial acuity, however. This strength gives her the ability to examine a crime scene and quickly conclude what actions took place at the scene. Her partner, Cole Bainbridge, a more senior agent, is a white skinned blue-eyed calm level-headed agent who has a great deal of patience with Savannah and helps anchor her. Although being background opposites, there is a chemistry between the two agents. Savannah reminds Cole of his deceased biracial girlfriend for whom he still suffers loss and guilt. Cole feels a certain degree of responsibility for his girlfriend’s unsolved murder as he was the intended target of the assassination.

This entire story is told from Savannah’s perspective. Starting in North Carolina, the author took me on two trips between Thailand and the Washington Beltway to solve industrial sabotage affiliated murders, and ultimately, to prevent the success of a terrorist attempt to destroy Washington DC using one of Tesla’s long debunked inventions. The mystery and setbacks in the story kept me reading and had me rooting for Savannah’s success.

There is a fair amount of text devoted to the economic and family devastation that offshoring American Jobs causes. Based on the strength of the narrative, I surmised that this issue is important to the author.

The book was well researched. Descriptions of perfected Tesla inventions and water quality analysis were explicit enough to help me imagine the machines and chemical processes.

This book’s title indicates that it is the first book in a series involving Savannah Kinlaw. I’m looking forward to picking up the second book.… (meer)

This book is an action/adventure tech thriller novel with an interesting historic undertone. History has it on record that the great Tesla died at a crucial time... he had invented a magnifying transformer, a way to wirelessly transmit energy using the resonant frequency of any metal, and hoped to use it for the good of mankind. Fact. A huge area in Siberia suddenly became a barren and charred wasteland, and Tesla believed that it was an outgrowth of his magnifying transformer (which focused its energy output into a thin beam so concentrated it would not scatter, even over vast distances) that caused that destruction all the way on the other side of the world. Fact. Rather than have this great weapon fall into the wrong hands, and with Tesla possibly planning on selling it to another country, a government-hired assasin killed Tesla in a way that made it look like a natural death and stole his papers. Fiction?
Fast-forwarding to today, a madman weilds this powerful tool, and Samantha Kinlaw, a Special Agent with a functional form of ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), is out to stop him before things get completely out of control.
This book is well-written, with solid characters and a fascinating plot. Reminiscent of the works of Clive Cussler, Chris Myers/D.C. Downey's book has the perfect combination of history, world travel, technology, action, adventure, and suspense to make it an enthralling story that captivates its readers from beginning to end. I can't wait to read more books by this author.… (meer)