Hacking Timbuktu

I asked amazon.com/VINE to send me this book to read and review because my 16-year old grandson is into both computers and more especially into parkour. English missionary Stephen Davies, resident in Burkino Faso wrote the boys adventure tale, HACKING TIMBUKTU. In an "Author's Note" Davies claims that this is "perhaps the first ever parkour novel." Davies does not provide a glossary of either hacking or parkour terminology. But he defines and redefines terms throughout his yarn. ***** The novel's hero is 16-year old Londoner Dan Temple. His father has moved to Australia with a new wife. Dad happily pays for Dan's rent in London. Dan is a school dropout trying to make a living as a "freelance code monkey." He is a White Hacker, i. e., does not worm his ways into computers to do harm -- at least initially. Dan's second passion is parkour (from the French parcourir, to run a course). In its simplest form, parkour is the art of running as fast as possible in as straight a line as possible toward a pre-defined goal, using only the human body as a means of propulsion. and for overcoming obstacles like walls, roofs, trenches, etc. A male practitioner of parkour is a traceur, a female: traceuse. "Parkour is not so very different from hacking. ... Both move freely to surpass the barriers erected by man to enclose and restrict" (Ch. 2). Boys love both codes and mysteries and running and jumping; so viva hacking! viva parkour! ***** Through Skype, Dan hacks his way into a computer in Timbuktu, Mali where he finds a Magic Square, the key to an immense treasure of gold stolen and hidden 700 years earlier. With his friend Omar, Dan Temple soon flies to Africa and pursues the treasure. The boys in turn are pursued by a growing horde of computer nerds worldwide who want them to share knowledge of the treasure with them. More dangerous is the novel's murderous villain Moktar Hassim, a religious student in Timbuktu. He offs or maims more than one person in his pursuit of the gold. Moktar has stolen the original manuscript giving exact indications of the trove's location. ***** Parkour is used incessantly throughout HACKING TIMBUKTU. For it is the art of escaping pursuers, as well as the art of running fast toward a goal. And are these boys pursued! Including by a larcenous London policeman. The African roots of parkour are also highlighted, as Moktar Hassim is shown to be a fast racer and obstacle overcomer in his own right. And like many others in Mali, Moktar can climb a cliff faster than is good for either Dan or Omar. ***** This is a fine boys adventure tale. I commend it warmly to parents and grandparents as a gift for boys and girls who show signs of becoming couch potatoes or mentally lazy. It is a wakeup call. -OOO-