Breakpoint is a cyberpunk

Cyberpunk

Cyberpunk is a postmodern and science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk, and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983...

 science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 novel by former United States intelligence and counterterrorism official Richard A. Clarke

Richard A. Clarke

Richard Alan Clarke was a U.S. government employee for 30 years, 1973–2003. He worked for the State Department during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush appointed him to chair the Counter-terrorism Security Group and to a seat on the United States National...

. It is his second novel. The book paints a dystopic prediction of the future.

Plot

A series of explosions occur at seemingly unimportant sites in the United States. These sites happen to be the locations where transatlantic cable

Transatlantic cable

Transatlantic cable may refer to:* Transatlantic telegraph cable* Transatlantic telephone cable* Other transatlantic submarine communications cable...

s from Europe and Asia reach the U.S. essentially cutting the U.S. off from the world, at least via the Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

. The attacks are immediately blamed on the Chinese. Two investigators are sent to investigate the incidents, with this assumption in mind. The investigators soon uncover an underground science of genomics and nanotech working on human-computer integration.