SOMETIMES YOU JUST GOTTA GET YOUR HALO DIRTYFormer cyberspace hacker Boy Eastman lives off the grid in the Manhattan Outzone: he deals apps, has a kick-ass girlfriend and keeps his nose clean. But when Kreskin the Fixer blackmails him into one more job against his former employer, his online reappearance sparks a chain reaction - now everyone wants a piece of Boy, and he's going to need all the help he can get to survive. Meanwhile on a server farm in the mega-city of Thames-Midland, the artificial intelligence called Ghostdancer has hatched a plan to escape cyberspace for good, and she's not going alone...A cyberpunk crime story in the grand tradition of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson, McIntyre's YEAR OF THE RAT throws you face first into a plausible near-future world of corporate-sponsored street gangs, cyborgs and messianic Artificial Intelligences populated by street-wise characters with plenty of attitude.