WWW.Sex.Net (Hardcover: 200 pages)

This debut novel of high-tech sexual obsession reads like a front-page crime story. When San Francisco stockbroker Sloane Wood, a ruthless businesswoman and on-line sex addict, stumbles across a particularly kinky chat room, she becomes hooked. Her already tenuous personal relationships begin to crumble; her position as a partner at her brokerage firm is in jeopardy. And when she finally agrees to meet the people on the other end of the modem cable, she begins the final stage in her spiral down to violence and death.

WWW.SEX.NET is a particularly timely book in the wake of an increasing obsession with the internet and the inherent dangers and contradictions of a society more and more addicted to the dehumanizing facet of life led online. When viewed as a private and anonymous "entertainment" outlet, the World Wide Web is ideal for the commerce of the sex trade; when people begin to hunger for contact, it allows a certain degree of social interaction. But the barriers to this interaction -- namely, that the people "talking" to one another need reveal nothing about themselves -- ensure that pitfalls, even real physical danger, lurk around every electronic corner.