Eric Barnes is completely fearless. His debut novel, Shimmer, is an insightful and incisive rendering of the kind of high-tech confidence man that it’s impossible not to recognize.... [A]s with … Delillo and Gibson, the technology, though high concept, is not the main subject of Barnes’ interest, except in the ways it transforms the characters. [A] remarkable character study, unflinchingly probing the psyche of its flawed but compelling protagonist. The choices that lead to Robbie Case’s fall never seem quite laudable, but they do seem understandable. And, well, human.