Pattern Recognition is set in the present, or perhaps a bit into the future. The protagonist Casey, is a young woman that works as a "coolhunter" finding out what trends are building in the fashion world, and consulting on logo designs. She reads hotmail, has no cellphone or laptop.

She comes to London on a consulting job, vetting the design of a new logo for a shoe manufacturer. Then things start to get weird. The apartment she's staing at gets broken into, but nothing is missing. An employee of her client burns a cigarette hole in her jacket. Her new boss wants to convince her to work on a different project with him.

He wants Casey to find the creator of "The Footage" bits and pieces of video that is being released on the Internet anonymously. The footage has a cult following all over the world, and Hubertus Bigend, the Belgian ad-agency owner wants to find out how the footage is made. Casey is also a fanatic of the footage, and with the help of Parkaboy, a fellow fan she knows only through the forum site she visits, sets out to track down the origins of the footage.

Like all Gibson novels, this one has rich characters and an interwoven plot. Unlike the last couple I've read, the lead actually drives the plot, instead of being dragged incomprehending, through it. This story is of a much more human scale.