Neuromancer   by William Gibson

For the first time since I was studying George Orwell at school I had to go back before I'd even finished to give the book a second reading.

Incredibly complex with a fantastic cast of wonderfully diverse characters, and a plot-line that could only happen in a science fiction virtual cross-reality.

The protagonist is hired through a chain of mysterious individuals, with whom he becomes part of a loyal team albeit with a couple of double-crossers, that has to hack into a rich family's data vaults to retrieve a physical key and a password. And so begins a rich and complex adventure which takes place in a bio-upgraded, drug fused real world and two layers of cyberspace (which this book invented). In the end it turns out that artificial intelligences created by that family are at odds with each other, and one of them is the ultimate employer of this eclectic team, as well as being a great tormentor of them.

Just brilliant, and easily worth another read.