Phew, this was a more difficult read than I remembered. Sam Verner is an annoying character, I had forgotten about that or not experienced it that way on my first read, 25 or so years ago. He feels very much like a self-righteous, "holier than thou" asshole. I know that the author tried to not have him be like that, but I still feel that way. His support characters, however, are what I am looking for in Shadowrun books. I love the Dodger and Hart, Willie is fun too, although her role is sadly very small.

The story itself was nice, the stakes certainly were high. There was sufficient tech-y action too. But overall I had to downgrade my rating from 4 to 3 stars.