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KADEN BAKER

baker_kaden_bk_catch baker_kaden_bk_bioha baker_kaden_bk_firef
 
Full Name: Kaden Baker
Series Name: Shadow Operatives
Nationality: American
Organization: Unknown
Occupation Agent

Creator: J. D. Lasica
Time Span: 2018 - 2022

ABOUT THE SERIES

Kaden Baker is an agent with an unnamed government agency.

If it has a name, I didn't catch it.

Officially and for the most of her professional day, she is employed as a data-analyst for a large firm called B Collective in Brooklyn but she also routinely gets involved in "one of her crazy-ass covert ops on the side". By data-analyst, though, we are really mean to understand she is more an expert at data-mining; hacker is a closer term.

We meet her in the middle of one of those covert operations, this one entailing breaking into the bowels of the Vatican to retrieve an item and get out, preferrably without severely injuring anyone or getting hurt herself. This assignment, like all she has done - and apparently by the time we first meet her, she has done quite a few - come to her via the man she refers to as Contact.

One fascinating aspect to Baker is revealed to us a couple of days after that escapade when she is heading to meet again with Contact for yet another assignment. Heading to a park for the meet, she is stunned to see approaching her estranged parents whom she has not seen since she graduated high school and was able to leave them behind. It is immediately apparent how unwanted this reunion is as she lets us know she had not tried to contact them once in the several years since that departure, nor they her as they had themselves left town. Seeing them again, Baker is reminded of "all the misery, the tears, the pain, the damage".

It is in this surprise meeting she learns why she did not look the bit like her parents and why they had shown only the least amount of caring: she discovers she had been adopted - and more stunning, they had not chosen her back when she was three but had instead been hired to raise her and "play the role of [her] parents". Even worse, that employment had apparently included instructions to put her "through a harsh childhood". Who would do such a thing, and why - that's part of the interesting story we are allowed to learn.

Kaden Baker is described as having "wispy blond hair tinged with purple" which "combined with her wiry physique, her short hair sometimes made people mistake her for a young man, which didn't bother her a bit". Baker is considered a 'Double Threat', defined as someone who could 'dazzle you with their mad hacking skills one minute and kickbox the hell out of you the next'. She had started learning martial arts at 16 as a coping mechanism and learned she was extremely good at it, and loved it.

Baker has as her closest, and possibly only, friend, Nico, the tech lead for the covert team and a fellow hacker at B Collective. He is described as a 'super-buff and agile' gay black man who has been martial arts training with Baker for some time and is a quick learner.

BOOKS

Number of Books:3
First Appearance:2018
Last Appearance:2022

1 Biohack Biohack
Written by J. D. Lasica
Copyright: 2018

"Kaden Baker, an elite hacker and covert ops specialist, finds her life turned upside down when she discovers that the parents who raised her were imposters.
Were they hired by the same shadowy figure who’s been financing her high-stakes secret missions beneath the Vatican and in Washington, D.C.?"
buy from Amazon

2 Catch And Kill Catch And Kill
Written by J. D. Lasica
Copyright: 2019

"Overnight, hundreds of teenage girls disappear from the streets of America. Off the coast of Florida, an augmented reality fantasy theme park opens for the super-rich. Are the two connected?
When two assailants accost 23-year-old Kaden Baker at an awards gala, she enters a maelstrom of high-tech international intrigue that pits her against a mysterious foe.
It will take all her covert ops and hacking skills as she allies with a group of family members to battle an enemy out to unleash a mass attack on the West by stealth."
buy from Amazon

3 Firefall Firefall
Written by J. D. Lasica
Copyright: 2022

"A mysterious rocket launch. A doomsday laser weapon. A secret that must never be revealed. What happens when a teen hacker accidentally uncovers a conspiracy that reaches to the highest levels of the White House?
Covert ops specialist Kaden Baker receives a frantic communication on Christmas Eve from Scorpion, a sixteen-year-old who fears for his life after stumbling upon a dark secret.
When Kaden's father is sent off on a spy mission halfway around the world, a swirl of events pits Kaden and Scorpion against powerful forces who will stop at nothing to prevent them from revealing the truth they uncovered."
buy from Amazon

MY COMMENTS

This series is promoted as a 'biopunk' series. I had seen that term before but never bothered to look it up because it had not entered my personal space (so to speak) before. Now it had. A portmanteau of "bio-technology" and "punk". Okay, a bit closer, I reckon, but ...

Then I found a better explanation which talked about genetic engineering, biohacks, and "oppressive government agencies focused on manipulating human DNA" (thanks to asethetics.fandom.com).

Yeah, this series definitely fits that.

I got to like Kaden Baker right away and the more I followed her adventures, the more I liked her. I hope the author, J.D. Lasica, brings up more Shadow Operative tales in the future.

GRADE

My Grade: B+

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SpyGuysAndGals is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, and links with the Buy from Amazon button are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.