Pattern Recognition

Cayce Pollard works as a freelance "coolhunter," a marketing consultant with an almost allergic sensitivity to logos and branding that makes her body physically recoil from corporate imagery. A London ad agency hires her to trace the maker of "the footage," a series of haunting, anonymous film clips appearing piece by piece across internet forums and drawing an obsessive global following. The search pulls Cayce from London to Tokyo to Moscow, tangling her with shady security contractors, online conspiracy theorists, and her own grief over a father who vanished during the September 11 attacks. Gibson builds a thriller out of brand culture, internet subcommunities, and the disorientation of the post-9/11 world.