After exactly one month, the UEFA EURO 2024 is over. There were quite a few surprises during the group and tournament phases. I hadn’t expected for the Austrian team to do as well as they did, reaching the top of their group but then being kicked out by Türkiye in the round of 16. It was also great to see the spirit of the Georgian team which reached the same stage, too ❤️

On the other hand, I was really disappointed by the Belgian and English teams and the the Turkish fans, but especially that England made it all the way to the finals despite playing really badly up until the semi-finals. I was just glad that they met Spain in the finals and they lost. But other than those I really enjoyed the whole event. Most matches were good to great (with only the ones with England being really boring) and I managed to watch most of them. Due to the heat wave, though, I couldn’t go to any public viewing sessions. Next time again 😄

It’s been a while since I’ve read a book that I simply could not put down. “Going Zero” by Anthony McCarten (German edition) managed that. The story is about an experiment where CIA/FBA/NSA cooperate with a Facebook-like company called “WorldShare” in order to see if that company with some of the resources of these agencies can manage to track down 10 volunteers (the Zeros) within a month. If one of them is still out there after that, they will get 3 million USD. All of them have been selected in some way to represent people with various skill levels, from cybersecurity experts to those who might know only little about the surveillance capability of the industry and government. All Zeros have their own reasons to participate in that test but one of them is a bit more special…

The story is basically 100% action with the plot jumping between the headquarters of Fusion (the name of the joint venture) and the Zeros. I think all the characters are interesting and most even likeable! It’s not quite clear until the end if there are even bad people in the game (spoiler: of course there are…) but especially that provides a lot of room for character development.

The author also tried to apply quite a lot of technology and I didn’t notice any obvious flaws that would hamper the plot 🙂 The only thing I didn’t like about the book was that most of the Zeros only get a rather short appearance. These other stories could have been much longer and the book would still not have been boring. Overall, this was a great read, though!

To get a bit of a mix between all these technical books that I want to read this year I also picked up the latest novel in the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch. Set at the shores of Lake Superior “Winter’s Gifts” is all about FBI special agent Kimberley Reynolds as she follows a call for support by retired agent Patrick Henderson who now lives in a fictional town in North Wisconsin near multiple Reservations. The place alone held the promise of lots of local mythology and folklore! It mostly lived up to that but felt a bit muted compared to the main instalments of the series.

I enjoyed it more than the other side-stories set in Germany but in places it just felt weird, especially when Kim’s inner monologue asked what Peter Grant would have done. In the early pages of the story there were hints about some magic experience inside the FBI but somehow it was hidden from their own agents working on the same matter. Other places made a few too many religious remarks that felt out of place given the history of the series. It was an entertaining read, though, just don’t expect too much and hope for the next Peter Grant adventure! When I read “Winter’s Gifts” it was just exactly what I needed, hence 4 stars 😄