A cyber-rogue named Kidd – the star of John Sandford's secondary series, after the Prey books – goes on the hunt for the computer belonging to a murdered superhacker in The Hanged Man's Song. Critics rave about Sandford's ability to convey the inside dope on the cyber-world. Kidd and his cat-burglar sidekick, LuEllen, are good for a few hours of fast-paced fun.

Hard-boiled computer hacker Kidd and his sometime girlfriend LuEllen make for a refreshingly roguish couple. (She's a professional thief; he's a career criminal who paints and reads tarot cards.) But Kidd's fourth outing is a predictable political thriller that unsuccessfully tried to tap into post-9/11 paranoia. A hacker pal of Kidd's is brutally murdered, and his laptop with dirt on Washington politicos (and possibly Kidd himself) is missing. As he traces a link between the killer and a secret government organization with Orwellian plans, Kidd proves just as resourceful as Sandford's other popular hero, Lucas Davenport. But in Song, he lacks a story equal to his talents.

Anyone who knows computers knows that Bobby is the Michael Jordan of hacking. No fire wall can keep him out if he chooses to enter that site. However, someone decides to keep Bobby out by smashing in his head. His friends are horrified by the violence, but also fear what the killer will do with the information found on Bobby's stolen laptop. Kidd understands the ramifications of the missing computer that may contain files pertaining to his own illegal activities. Besides his personal safety, Kidd also feels a need to avenge the death of his friend. Bobby's secrets begin to surface, providing a trial that takes Kidd around the country, but ultimately to DC where the political elite is in jeopardy of exposure. Though the earlier Kidd entries show the speed in which technology becomes obsolete, The Hanged Man's Song is an exciting thriller starring an intriguing lead character whose moral code is a bit different than most people. The story line is fast-paced as Kidd is accompanied by his cat burgling girlfriend follows the clues. John Sandford, better known for those delicious Prey novels has written a strong tale starring a charming offbeat individual with a quest for justice, Kidd style.

John Sandford's fans never embraced his original series featuring career criminal and computer hacker Kidd in the numbers they have Sandford's Lucas Davenport books. But The Hanged Man's Song, which marks Kidd's return, is thrilling bytes-to-bullets entertainment.

If you aren't into computers you might have trouble following the action in The Hanged Man's Song.

Sandford, best known for his popular Prey books, also writes novels featuring a hacker called Kidd – painter, Tarot reader and buccaneer of bytes. With the help of his clandestine mentor Bobby, whom he knows only through the Net, Kidd manipulates data to remain anonymous as he outsmarts government and corporate nasties. But now, in this fourth installment of the series, Bobby has mysteriously gone off-line. Kidd enlists his own sometime girlfriend, the coke-snorting burglar LuEllen, to find out what happened, and they're off on a high-risk cross-country hunt for a psycho killer. Sandford makes the tech stuff exciting, and the plot, thrillingly punctuated by unexpected violence, has a satisfying vigilante finale.

This series of techno-suspense novels featuring artist, computer wizard, and professional criminal Kidd and his sometime girlfriend, cat-burglar LuEllen, are far fewer in number and less well-known than Sandford's bestselling Prey books. In this entry, Bobby, Kidd's genius hacker friend ("Bobby is the deus ex machina for the hacking community, the fount of all knowledge, the keeper of secrets, the source of critical phone numbers, a guide through the darkness of IBM mainframes"), goes offline for good when he is hammered to death by an intruder. Bobby's laptop is stolen, which is bad news for Kidd as several of his more illegal transactions may be catalogued on the hard drive. Kidd needs to find the computer, break the encryption and revenge Bobby's death. The trail leads from Kidd's St. Paul, Minn., art studio to heat-stricken rural Mississippi and on to Washington, D.C., where Kidd uncovers a government conspiracy that threatens the reputations and livelihood of most of the nation's elected representatives. One of the joys of the series is learning the tricks of computer hacking and basic burglary as Kidd and LuEllen take us to Radio Shack, Target, Home Depot and an all-night supermarket to buy ordinary gear, including a can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew, to use in clever, illegal ways. The action is as hot and twisted as a Mississippi back road, but the indefatigable Kidd eventually straightens it all out and exacts a sort of rough justice that matches his flexible moral code. The early entries in this series have aged badly because of the advances in technology, but this latest intelligent and exciting thriller proves a worthy addition to Sandford's overall body of work.

John Sandford (actually former Twin Cities journalist John Camp) regularly hits the best-seller lists with his Prey series, and justifiably so. Less well known, but equally terrific, are his books about Kidd – dedicated painter, world-class computer hacker, occasional industrial spy and form advocate of tarot cards.