A high-tech thriller about a crew of rebel spies and scientists on a mission to thwart a tyrannical autocrat.

The axe is buried in the forest, and only a select few know where to dig . . .

The world is dark and cold. Several world powers have tasked complex algorithms to govern their states and “optimize” political decision-making. These newly coded ministers begin their less-than generous assessment of mankind’s utility on earth, allocating or eliminating crucial resources and sending their once hopeful citizens into a panic. The body politic is extremely unwell, infected by its own single-minded pursuit of efficiency and subject to the artificially intelligent wills of their new rulers.

From seemingly distinct and far-flung corners of this empire, rebel forces converge to protect humanity from careening into oblivion. Lilia, a programmer and robotics expert; Palmer, a diplomat; and Nikolai, personal doctor to an immortal president: all race to follow a mysterious sequence of clues embedded in a new mind-bending technology meant to imitate human consciousness in real time. None of them can see the forest through the trees on their own, but together, there may be a chance to understand the complexities that engulf them and to avert the implosion of the human world.

Following the success of his debut novel, The Mountain in the Sea, Ray Nayler launches listeners into a new and darkly thrilling world of geopolitical espionage. With an eerie prescience, Where the Axe Is Buried depicts a world where the boundaries between human and machine are porous and computer programs determine the value of a life, or of millions. As exciting as it is philosophical, it melds a near impossible revolutionary operation with a blistering indictment of authoritarianism, making a lyrical and potent case for human freedom.