I like books where the prose suits the action, and this one (translated from the German) bounces astutely in real-time from event to reaction to event. It’s a bit chaotic, too, with so many characters coming and going. Since most of the scenes are only a page or two long, the pace of the novel is very rapid-fire, a staccato drumbeat of action and suspense. Elsberg wrote Blackout in short vignettes. Kind of like The Fugitive, with different parameters.Īnd while Manzano takes center stage in what turns out to be a book-long chase, the other featured characters appear regularly, too.

Manzano won’t stop trying to solve the blackout problem that so intrigues him, while the authorities won’t stop chasing him across Europe. What ensues is a whirlwind sequence of discoveries and encounters and misunderstandings. Instead of working alongside, they lock him up. Because he has been in trouble with the law before (although he insists he only hacks to find software weaknesses), they fear Manzano himself might be involved in the nefarious scheme. When he goes to the authorities, however, they suspect his motives. Piero Manzano figures out what programming is the most likely source of the malfunctioning software that controls the grid. Then, one by one, the United States begins to go black, too.įrom the outset, a talented Italian hacker suspects foul play.

In France, in Switzerland, in Belgium, in cities and towns and rural outposts. A dairyman, watching his cows suffer because the milking machines no longer work. A mother caring for two small children while her husband struggles to tamp down the bedlam. Software programmers trying to figure out how this madness could possibly have happened. An engineer attempting to save his machinery from permanent damage. It follows several separate characters who are coping with the disaster. Absolute chaos ensues.īlackout is a thriller that reads like a thriller, with every page describing a nail-biter scene. Entire operations, like nuclear reactors, malfunction and melt down.

Without cold storage, food rots in refrigerators, then in supermarkets and in suppliers’ facilities. Radio and television stations go off the air. In a very short time, each European country goes totally dark until, finally, the entire continent is essentially functionless.Įlsberg’s novel takes place in the dead of winter. Blackout’s pandemonium comes after Europe’s electrical grids experience a total breakdown. Blackout does not feature a viral pandemic, but it does imagine similar societal chaos. You probably shouldn’t read (as I did) Marc Elsberg’s thriller, Blackout, while cable news is concentrating on the catastrophic outcomes of a spreading coronavirus.

Black out elsberg