Treacherous Hack by Kevin G. Chapman Book Review and Author Interview + Giveaway

The detective thriller is such an enticing genre. There’s no way I’d want to be out in the elements and working long hours tracking down criminals, trying to decipher the truth from the lies, and keeping myself out of harms way, but I’m totally up for sitting on the shoulder of fictional detectives as they weave their way through a mystery with information that the reader has been given in advance.

These stories are about the journey and hoping that your heroes end up with a satisfying outcome. Author Kevin G. Chapman has written a very satisfying edition to the detective thriller with his novel, Treacherous Hack. Check out my review of the book, followed by an interview with the author, and enter to win a copy via the SweepWidget form below!

Treacherous Hack plot summary

One winter’s night, NYPD Detectives Jason Dickson and Mike Stoneman are called to a lower Manhattan street outside of a pawn shop where owner Lou Palazzo lays dead from a gunshot wound to the head. Inside the shop are the bodies of two members of a Chinese mob.

As Dickson investigates the murder, his wife, EMT turned news reporter Rachel Robinson gets a call to report on the murder for her station, ACN. Trying to find witnesses and gather facts on the murder isn’t easy when your husband is trying to keep that very information quiet from the public, and she and Dickson find themselves struggling to share information without compromising their jobs or the investigation.

Meanwhile, Palazzo’s nephew, Ryan Gelb, and his best friend, Will Scarano, are laying low after a project for their NYU computer science class got real and resulted in a hack on the school. What they don’t know is that the mob is watching them, believing that they have access to a file worth millions that Palazzo was hiding from the mob. And they are totally oblivious to the fact that their harmless actions have put their, and their girlfriends’, lives at risk.

The story

Treacherous Hack starts out strong with an action-packed opening and remains steadily compelling throughout. This is a thriller, not a mystery. So, the audience is in on the details. The suspense comes from watching this information unfold slowly among the characters and how it tests their personal relationships, problem solving skills, and, most importantly, their safety.

Treacherous Hack is Book 7 in the Mike Stoneman series. However, it can easily be read as a standalone story, as I did, this being my first read of the series. It has its own plot, conflict, and resolution. Chapman catches the reader up on backstories when needed, and the rest of the time, it stays focused on moving forward with the plot of this particular entry.

There’s no filler. Every chapter is important, and it reveals more details and builds up a relationship between the reader and the characters. It also slows down when it needs to keep the reader caring about the characters wrapped up in the conflict.

The characters

Detective stories tend to fall flat on characterization, but this novel doesn’t. The characters act appropriate to their personalities, perspective, and role in the story. Each character sounds and acts distinct from one another, making them well-rounded and realistic.

I had no problem keeping up with the large number of characters in this book or their backstories. The backstories themselves were not an info. dump of past experiences from the returning characters that were forcibly added to each character’s introduction in this installment. Instead, they were organically worked in at specific moments to raise the stakes of the scene and contribute to the actions that each character takes at handling the challenges presented to them as the story unfolds.

Everyone was given something to do, and there was no single side plot that fell flat. Rachel’s story was particularly intriguing as I was eager to see how she navigated getting a scoop on her news reports without getting in her husband’s way of the investigation. Of course, this turns into a problem. It would be disappointing if it didn’t, but I think it was handled in surprising, yet realistic ways.

Rachel comes across as the rookie that she is but also a capable person with a support system to back her up. Her friend, Michelle, the medical examiner and Mike’s wife, knows the trials and tribulations of working closely with her husband, though their interests don’t conflict the way that Jason and Rachel’s do. But Mike has been keeping his own secret from Michelle, one that involves their niece who is also unknowingly wrapped up in Ryan’s predicament.

My recommendation

I recommend Treacherous Hack to anyone who loves a good detective story. It has its share of language and gore, though I think the average detective/thriller reader will anticipate that and be able to handle it. It was also full of surprises, which is difficult to do in a genre that is typically formulaic, yet it had the good old fashioned elements that those who love this kind of story will be hoping for.

My rating

Enter the giveaway!

An interview with Kevin Chapman

What’s the process for writing a sequel that can stand alone as an independent story?

Each of the books in the Mike Stoneman series is a fully stand-alone story. The main characters stay the same – along with some of the recurring side characters – but each story is a new investigation for my homicide detectives.

There is a development of the characters in each book, so reading them in order allows a reader to follow the arc of the relationships. For example, in book #1, Mike and county medical examiner Dr. Michelle McNeill are just beginning a late-in-life romance. Mike’s new partner, Jason Dickson, is a brash 30-year-old bachelor recently promoted to detective. They don’t get along well.

By book #5, they are on a trip to Las Vegas with Jason and his fiancé, Rachel, so Jason and Rachel can get married and Mike & Michelle are serving as best man and maid of honor. There are new characters introduced in each book, but those who are not recurring figures are generally done with their but at the end of the book.

I think of the books as “seasons” of a long-running Netflix series. Each season has its own story, even if the main characters keep coming back in new situations.

What does a standard writing session look like to you? Do you have any rules or rituals? Is there a specific time that you write?

I tend to write on my couch in the evenings while watching television with my wife. Mostly sports. I can work on outlines, characters, and draft text in between pitches just fine.

I have a day job, so the normal work hours are not available, so I write whenever I have time. There is no ritual to it other than a cup of Diet Pepsi and my laptop.

You wrote in your acknowledgements that subscribers of your newsletter gave permission to use their names as characters in the book. How did you come up with this idea? How did you decide which names to give each character? What feedback did you receive from those subscribers?

Coming up with character names, especially for side characters, can be difficult. Sure, there are name-generator programs, but I don’t want an AI-generated name.

An author friend suggested the idea of using the names of friends and readers. I started soliciting my newsletter subscribers and found that people love to see their name in a book as a character.

I don’t promise that their character will be a good person (not a criminal) or that they won’t die. Some turn out to be a cameo, while others have been major characters in the stories. The volunteers love it! (And most will purchase a book. I can inscribe a paperback by thanking them for the use of their name and list the page number where their character first appears.)

Do you have a favorite character?

Aside from the main four characters in the Mike Stoneman series, my favorite side character is Captain Sullivan, Mike & Jason’s boss. He’s cranky and yells a lot but has a soft heart under his gruff exterior and always has the backs of his detectives. I love voicing him on the audiobooks.

There is also a recurring bit-part character who appears in books 1-5 named Mrs. DeVito who was a hoot to develop (mostly as recommended by my wife, Sharon, who helps me with all the “B” plots in the books).

Jason and Rachel have to navigate a very tricky conflict of interest throughout the book. Did you plot out how that conflict would play out, or did it come about organically as you wrote?

Rachel got her reporting job at the American Cable News network in book #6 (Double Takedown). I gave her that career path specifically because I wanted to develop a plot where her work as a reporter would bump into Jason’s job and create a conflict for the young married couple.

I work for a newspaper, so I’m sensitive to issues of confidentiality and protection of sources. A reporter and a cop living together will inevitably encounter confidentiality issues and have to keep secrets from each other.

The keeping of secrets is one of the key undercurrents in Treacherous Hack, so this was the perfect time to use that conflict between Jason and Rachel. It’s also an opportunity to show the couple dealing with a serious problem, rather than always being happy. It’s real life, and it gets messy.

You also wrote that your son helped you with the video game references. What’s a fun fact that you learned from him that either did or didn’t end up in the book? What experience do you have playing video games, particularly modern ones?

My personal video game experience is limited to playing Super Mario and N64 games with my children when they were younger. As they got older and migrated into more complicated and immersive video games, I dropped out of that activity (and started writing novels). So, I know the basics of how video games work, and I listen to the conversations my kids have about their games, but I needed an expert for this story.

Fortunately, my son lives at home and works from home, so he’s around and available to be my reference source. As I was struggling to figure out how the video game was going to work in the story, it was Connor who pointed out to me that in some PS4 games, players can send each other messages. Eureka! Without spoiling a big plot mystery, Connor also helped me with the logistics of how data gets stored inside a video game console.

There’s a running reference to The Maltese Falcon. Where in the writing process did you begin to work this into the story? Do you have any special relationship with that movie?

The Maltese Falcon is one of my favorite books. The movie is a very true depiction of the book. I love the style of writing, and it forms some of the basis for my own style.

Whenever there is something missing that must be found, or the hunt for a treasure, I always think about The Maltese Falcon. So, when I began plotting out this book, I immediately decided to make those subtle references much more obvious and make Lou a fan of the movie – and all Bogart films – and pass that love down to his nephew, Ryan.

The falcon becomes the identity of the missing data file, and the secret clue to its whereabouts has a specific falcon reference. It was great fun weaving the references and the Bogard nods into this story.

Is Book 8 in the works? If so, is there anything you can tease about that story?

My next book is a stand-alone thriller not connected to the Mike Stoneman series, but existing in the same universe. (A pair of homicide detectives from Mike’s precinct appear in the story as they did in my stand-alone novel The Other Murder.)

In the new book, the protagonist, Antonio, has moved into a very special low-income housing project building in Manhattan to help care for his aging grandmother. The Building is the pet project of a tech billionaire. It runs autonomously, with zero rent for the residents, as long as they can prove their founder’s hypothesis: that a community of people who will all lose their apartments if the building fails its annual inspection can form a collective that will sustain itself long-term.

The residents love it there and fiercely guard the community. That includes enforcing the rules and preventing anyone from causing damage or endangering the community’s continued existence. It’s also a high-tech wonderland with automated systems, tight security, and even robot butlers who deliver packages and Grub Hub food to the residents. It’s called Utopia Tower for a reason.

But after Antonio moves in, an 18-year-old resident kills himself by leaping from a balcony. A week later, another young man is killed in a freak elevator accident. Antonio starts to wonder whether it’s just a coincidence that both dead youths were considered troublemakers and were facing potential banishment from the community.

When a third resident dies in bizarre circumstances – this time an older man, but also a rabble-rouser – Antonio seriously questions whether this is Utopia or something darker. The truth about Utopia Tower will surprise everyone involved, including the billionaire founder. Readers will try to solve the puzzle along with Antonio and won’t want to put down The Building.

The Building should be published in mid-2026.

Buy it!

Buy a copy of Treacherous Hack here, and help support local bookstores!

This is an affiliate link, and I will earn a commission on any sales.

Pin it to Pinterest!