Social Engineer (Brody Taylor Thrillers #1) by Ian Sutherland / Books Teacup and Reviews

Published: August 4th 2014 by Brookmans Books

Read Date: October 20th 2017

Pages: 87

Stars: 5/5

Whose side is he on? The drug company curing dementia or the animal rights activists protesting outside?

Brody Taylor loves hacking humans. After all, people are the weakest link in all computer systems. If he’s hired to break into your network, he will find and exploit the weak point. You.

The problem with always manipulating people is that even those closest to you don’t trust you.

And Brody’s just fallen in love with Melanie, a zany, beautiful French animal rights activist. But she’s in love with the character he’s trapped himself in, not the real Brody, social engineer and computer hacker. Can Brody social engineer his way to the truth and save his relationship with Melanie?

A novella that introduces Brody Taylor in a thrilling standalone adventure. At 60 pages, SOCIAL ENGINEER can be read in under two hours!

Social Engineer, novella of Brody Taylor Thrillers series, is the introduction of main character of the series Brody Taylor and his work. What he does for living, how he carry out his work and justification of his job why it is white hat not black hat with thrilling clever plot and love story. Blurb itself tells what’s in the story.

Brody, shrewd intelligent social engineer and pentester earned by manipulating people. In simple terms white hat hacker. He lived dangerous life more around hacking and social networking world than real people. He was flawed character, interesting and very much manipulating outside his work area as well. He was first desperate to date someone and once he met his love, Mel, he was desperate to save the relationship. I liked his attempts of rectifying his lies. One thing was very good about him, he never lied to himself and he knew the consequences of his action and lies.

Mel– Brody met on dating site. She was nurse and animal rights campaigner. Honestly she was just okay in the beginning but in the later part I liked her and I respected her decision at the end. I liked how her character played major role in Brody’s life also a first step to this series.

Other characters at HTL, (Pharma company on which he carried out pen test), were written creatively different from each other and their position and nature was depicted very well in just few words.

All Chapters were divided in present- the pen test presentation on HTL by Brody which was on how he carried out pen test. And in past, that is few weeks back before accepting pen test work on HTL which was about the personal life of Brody, how he first met Mel and what happened from there on. All this past and present connects at climax.

I loved how this story started. How head of R&D at HTL, hired Brody to carry out pen test after receiving call regarding attack by hackers to the project he was working on. The explanation of whole project and company’s position was nice and set a good impression in the book, I knew I’m in for one of the brilliant book. I was instantly hooked to it and the next came justification of title and work of Brody. Just perfect. I honestly didn’t know this much details on cyber securities and penetration testing. I was feeling like I know nothing. This was very amazing and jaw dropping.

I was reading that whole pen test scenes with wide eyed and open mouth. The way he pointed out the hole in the company’s security and staff, how they helped in breaking through the system and psychology behind their act was brilliant. That was very shocking how easily a person can get all the information from social network and by manipulation and how people can’t even see that coming. How exposed this world is through these sites.

I was very impressed with Brody’s ways. This dude was so intelligent in the book. I didn’t guess he could be most wanted among bad hackers, his online identity as a hacker was mind blowing and I liked the precautions he took for himself, his family or persons closer to him. I totally understood the reason he lied to Mel.

Book also showed the view on animal rights. Both from animal rights activist and from Brody’s which was in Pharma Company’s favor in the beginning and yet he was neutral person who didn’t care until certain point. I liked reading both the aspect author showed regarding this topic.

The twist in the book was shocking. I didn’t see it coming. This was the point where all the thoughts I had about characters was switched to 90 degree. The end of the book was perfect. I liked how things ended up. I would love to read more of Brody Taylor’s thrilling world.

One thing I learned from this book is never share anything personal or work related things on social media. I can’t imagine how dangerous that can be.

Overall, this was brilliant, perfectly written book with all the required details in just few pages. It was quite quick read with unique story. I recommend this to all.