If the name Matt Richtel sounds familiar, it’s because this guy has been following technology for the New York Times for going on seven years. Tomorrow, Richtel’s first novel, Hooked, will hit the stands. According to the subtitle, Hooked is “a thriller about love and other addictions.” All I can say is that the first two pages, which find our narrator receiving a note from an anonymous woman in a San Francisco cafe seconds before the cafe explodes, did, indeed, have me hooked. The book is fast-paced and often funny, at times surprising, and will likely delight Silicon Valley types, who will find the places and characters highly recognizable. Richtel’s debut is the third offering of Twelve, which made its own debut with Christopher Buckley’s Boomsday, followed by Christopher Hitchens’s God Is Not Great. (Disclaimer: I met Richtel at a recent party for The Year of Fog. But even if I hadn’t met him, I’d still like this book…really!)

I’ve also just received word of an interesting new imprint from a major publisher…details to come.