The Selby Printout — Ruth Benjamin

A few numbers keyed into a computer by trembling hands - and a man's career, his reputation, and his very life are in peril, in a high-stakes game of computer fraud. The prime suspect? Michael Berman, a ba'al teshuvah still grappling with his own questions of where he belongs in the Jewish world. Someone has broken into a bank's computer network and made off with huge sums of money. All eyes turn accusingly towards Michael, the last employee to have worked on the account. As Michael tries to clear his name, he finds himself entangled in a web of intrigue and danger. So many questions: Whose hand is it, that leaves such tiny traces in the digital world of cyberspace? How can Michael prove that his tampering with the bank's figures was completely innocent? And, most difficult question of all, how can Michael restore the contentment and satisfaction that he'd felt when he'd first become an observant Jew? To find the answers, Michael and his aging grandfather, an unlikely ally in this high-tech chase, pursue a dangerous course that will lead them from the depths of the earth to South Africa's highest mountains - and onto a journey of self-discovery that will help them reveal their own selves, even as they uncover the hidden enemy. The Selby Printout, is a thrilling and thought-provoking novel: Published by Targum Press in 1998, it was the Jewish world's first techno-thriller.