There's money in the foothills of that thar sex

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Book: Sex.com
Author: Kieren McCarthy
System Requirements: A cool head
Web Site: SEXDOTCOM.INFO [No relation, Ed.]
Price: £13

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LET ME DECLARE an interest. I knew Kieren McCarthy when he worked at another plaice, and I liked the way he gave Ken Livingstone a hard time one evening. A cheery soul, he banged out stories at the other plaice like there was no tomorrow, and in those days sometimes there didn't seem like there was a tomorrow.

This book races along. You don't need beta blockers, but sometimes it races along too fast because you keep seeing facts you've seen before in previous pages. I blame the editor for this. Everyone needs an editor. Not everyone needs to be an editor.

The story is how a convicted crook nicked the domain name sex.com from its legitimate owner, the latter consequently spending gazillions attempting to rescue it back and causing all sorts of emotional ructions en route but making money for pleaders a plenty. Unscrupulous people can always rip the trusting, who they consider gullible, and sometimes it takes quite a lot of crap for the trusting to realise they're being ripped by virtual gangsters.

Not that either of the antagonists in this virtual bible come out of the sex.com river looking like they've been cleansed of Original Sin. Both Gary Kremen and Stephen Cohen are unlikely candidates for sainthood. But, then, those who live in glass houses shouldn't cast stones.

If there is a moral lesson here, perhaps it is that in the early and mid-1990s the Interwibble was like the Wild West and if you just hoisted up a stake saying "here be gold", there then was gold. Or at least a stake in nuggets.

The sub text here is that if you have a dispute with someone over an idea for a web site, the last person you should visit is a lawyer because unlike London cab drivers, they are likely to take you along a route which might include Rockall and an overclocked meter.

Kieren outlines the plot with great verve and panache and you've hardly finished one chapter before you want to start the next. This is very different from online web sites.

Towards the end of the book, Kieren visits the perp of the domain heist of the "jewel in the Internet's crown". The perp still maintains he's innocent but is incarcerated in Dullsville, which must surely be living hell even if you're not in prison.

The book races along. Although there is a chick on the cover arranged in the shape of an "X", McCarthy no doubt had nothing to do with this at all. We understand that McCarthy now has a job connected to ICANN.

The book spinner describes Kieren as a top bogger and he has written for many a publication. Quercus Books doesn't say who the editor of this 275 page book is. It is well researched and that. But it just races along. Pass me the beta blockers. ?

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