Shimmer

In just three years, CEO Robbie Case has grown

Core Communications, a data technology company,

from 30 people to over 5,000. Now a $20 billion

company made legendary by its sudden success,

Core is based on a technology no other company

can come close to copying, a revolutionary

breakthrough known as "drawing blood from a

mainframe." And Robbie, its 35-year-old CEO, is

acclaimed worldwide for his vision, leadership and

wealth.

Except that all of it is based on a lie. The technology

doesn't work, the finances are built on a Ponzi

scheme of stock sales and shell corporations, and

Robbie is struggling to keep the company alive,

to protect the friends who work for him and all

that they've built. Each day, Robbie tries to push

the catastrophe back a little further, while his

employees believe that they are all moving closer

to "grace," the day their stock options vest, when

they will be made rich for their faith and loyalty and

hard work. The details of the lie are all keyed into

a shadowy interface that Robbie calls Shimmer, an

omniscient mainframe that hides itself, calculates

its own collapse, threatens to outsmart its creator

and to reveal the corporation's illegal, fragile

underpinnings.

Shimmer is the story of a high-tech crusade nearing

its end. The shell game Robbie has created is finally

running out of room. And Robbie is the only one

who knows or who has a chance to make things

right. Or is he?

A breathless debut novel that charges the

atmosphere with suspense and surprise and

delivers complex characters you can root for in

spite of their flaws, Shimmer is Robbie's race

against the truth.