Jack Morrison, a computer consultant to AmMath corporation, is shot to death in Dallas. It looks like a simple break-in gone bad, but the victim's sister, Lane Ward, doesn't believe it. She contacts her brother's old associate, Kidd, who has a secret life as an information highwayman — a thief who deals in software, data, and anything else of value that moves from modem to modem. Kidd uncovers a vast electronic conspiracy that involves both AmMath and a cadre of U.S. government bureaucrats who use technology to cover up murders and to blackmail prominent citizens. Despite the resources of the opposition, Kidd, along with his renegade band of hackers and telephone wizards, brings the bad guys to their knees. Sandford, whose best-selling Prey novels feature sometimes-nasty police detective Lucas Davenport, began his career with two Kidd novels but then rested the character for nine years. His return will have particular appeal for those readers with a sense of paranoia regarding the new Web world. Kidd is a unique protagonist whose toughness is derived not from flashing fists or big guns but from superior intellect and moral certitude. It won't be nine years before the next Kidd novel.

Sandford reaches back to the dim past before his fabulously popular Lucas Davenport thrillers (Easy Prey, etc.) to resurrect his even pulpier hero, artist/hacker/design-thief Kidd (The Empress File, 1992), for this tale of computer skullduggery on an epic scale. When her brother Jack Morrison is shot dead, allegedly while breaking into a sensitive area at the Dallas firm of AmMath, Lane Ward follows his posthumous directive to "get in touch with Kidd." It's good advice, since Kidd immediately sets Lane's mind at rest about her brother's ethics by insisting that Jack would never have been carrying a gun on such a routine errand. Instead, he wonders what AmMath, encryption specialists who've been working on a code for a new generation of computer chips that will allow Uncle Sam to read everybody's mail, might have had on Jack that made them want to set him up. The answer follows shortly with the news that a conspiracy of hackers calling themselves Firewall has brought the IRS to its knees by flooding it with bogus electronic returns. The only problem with the report is that Kidd, a member of Firewall, doesn't know anything about this latest act of civil disobedience. Neither do any of the other Firewallers he gets in touch with. Realizing that AmMath CEO St. John Corbeil is setting up Firewall just as he set up Jack, Kidd and his friend LuEllen, whose specialty is stealing the portable property that's too bulky for Kidd, go into full action mode with half a dozen brainy, well-armed specialist allies. The fur flies furiously, though the plot, fueled by endless, mindless action scenes punctuated by macho posturing from characters of every gender, soon sags into monotony. Tailor-made for the potentially huge X-Men audience that can't be bothered scanning all those comic-book pictures or hiking out to the bijou.

Would that Sandford, creator of the marvelous and bestselling Prey thrillers, had heeded Thomas Wolfe's advice about going home again. Instead, he's resurrected a hero from his previous crime series (The Fool's Run, etc.) in his latest thriller, which begins when the infamous Kidd — artist, computer expert and master criminal — is called in to investigate the mysterious death of a former colleague in Texas. Working with the victim's sister, Kidd slowly uncovers a massive computer conspiracy masterminded by St. John Corbeil, the president of a Texas microchip company, whose excesses spiral out of control when the company's product (after gaining a foothold in the world of intelligence) bombs in the commercial marketplace. At first Kidd is inclined to steer clear of the seamier side of the conspiracy, but when several members of his own high-powered criminal group are implicated and the National Security Agency begins scrutinizing his operation, he brings in his part-time partner and lover, LuEllen, to help with the investigation. Their probe turns dangerous when the corporate kingpin hires a pair of assassins to hunt down Kidd, eventually forcing him to focus on a mano-a-mano duel with Corbeil. Sandford pens plenty of stirring action scenes as Kidd's encore unfolds, and it's clear that the author likes playing with his hero's shady sensibility and the chemistry he enjoys with the versatile and erotic LuEllen. But despite his edgy and sometimes provocative narrative style, Sandford struggles to bring a sense of urgency to the narrative. Kidd's return will be welcome news for Sandford fans, but the tepid plot makes his comeback a pedestrian affair.