Love Bytes

Reality and virtual reality meet in Chapman's charming and suspenseful second novel, following Raw Data. Bondsperson Lorna Donatello approaches San Francisco computer fraud investigators Julie Blake and her partner/lover Vic Paoli to find bail-jumper Arnie Lufkin. Lufkin, a hacker accused of stealing half a million dollars from his employers, had been working on a revolutionary VR program. Lorna gives the investigators a CD-ROM, which she had mistakenly thought was a music CD, on which, she says, is Lufkin's latest project. Intrigued, the investigators agree to look into the case, but before they start, Julie finds a threatening poem on her computer screen when she logs on. She and Vic track Lufkin to an employment headhunter who, though she may have helped him after he skipped bail, is now dead of poisoning. After Julie ``witnesses'' the murder on the CD, the duo is convinced that Lufkin, who was reported as having jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge, is not only alive but dangerous. Chapman's computer tale is reader-friendly entertainment. (May)