The Virtual Monk

Prof. Melrose Gregg does not intend to become involved in a manhunt, an FBI terrorist investigation, or a gun battle (one never does, really) but that's exactly what happens when his friend and colleague Liam Donovan fails to show up for a simple tuxedo fitting. Melrose, a former investigative newspaper reporter, is spending the autumn of his life teaching English to college freshmen, visiting his grandchildren, and occasionally bedding Marcia Judd, the English Department chairwoman. When his friend Liam leaves some terse text messages and then disappears, Melrose decides to go find him. Accompanied by Marcia, his former SEAL brother Frank, and a mysterious boy genius named Bernard, Prof. Gregg follows the leads where they take him. Along the way he susses out the meaning of a cryptic allegorical riddle his missing pal has left behind, the key to which appears to lie somewhere in the pages of an 18th century Gothic novel. The riddle concerns one of the world's largest supercomputers and the plans of a Denver billionaire to use the computer to create artificial intelligence. Prof. Gregg just wants to find Liam, but ends up uncovering a massive conspiracy to re-order economies on a global scale.