Category Archives: noir

Seeing the Mirage Man

Leave a reply

Mirage Man
Trace Conger
paper $12.99
ebook $0.99

This post is a better fit over at Gumshoes, Gats, and Gams, but that blog isn’t very active at the moment. I’m posting this review here so more people will see it. I’d like to thank Trace Conger for providing me with a review copy.

Mirage Man is a crime novel that’s fast, engaging, and extremely violent.

I loved it.

Conger wrote three novels about PI Finn Harding, which I reviewed here, here, and here. Mirage Man deals with Finn’s brother Conner. It’s the first of a series, and I’m going to be along for the ride.  Continue reading →

A Look at Monsters by James Alderdice

Leave a reply

Monsters (Fantasy Noir #1)
James Alderdice
ebook $2.99

As most people know, James Alderdice is the pen name of David J. West.  I reviewed his most recent novel a week or so ago.  Monsters isn’t part of that particular series, but it does kick off a nice fantasy-noir blend.

It’s a short book, so I’m not going to go into a lot of detail.  I don’t want to spoil the plot for you. I will tell you up front that there’s a cliffhanger ending, so if you’re waiting for the next installment in the brutal trilogy, you might feel the same way when you read the end of this one.

Tam Zphinx works as a Rat Catcher, which is slang for a private detective in his city.  One day he and his partner are visited by a beautiful woman.  She wants to hire them to retrieve a chalice her husband, a powerful nobleman, has taken from her and to find proof that he’s cheating on her.

In case you haven’t read many private detective stories, clients often lie.  Especially beautiful ones. Continue reading →

The Next Few Days, Plus a Kickstarter of Interest

Leave a reply

Classes start today; I’ve got one from11:00 – 1:50.  On top of that, my wife is having shoulder surgery tomorrow morning.  Nothing big, i.e., not a rotator cuff, but I’ll be tied up with that and won’t be at work.  Depending on how long her parents stay and if her painkillers are working, I may or may not be at work on Friday.  (It hey are here and the drugs aren’t working, I’m coming in to work.)  Anyway, I might not be very active online until next week.

Farewell-200x300In the meantime, there’s a new Kickstarter readers of this blog might be interested in.  It’s called, Farewell, Something Lovely.  The title is a play on Raymond Chandler’s novel, Farewell, My Lovely.  It’s a collection of hardboiled sword and sorcery tales by Fraser Ronald.  Since S&S and hardboiled/noir are two of my three favorite subgenres, I’m looking forward to this one.

And if you haven’t been following the discussion at Howard Andrew Jones’ blog on the relationship between hardboiled and sword and sorcery, start here.

Return to the Empire State in The Age Atomic

4 Replies

The Age Atomic
Adam Christopher
Angry Robot Books
UK Print
ISBN: 9780857663139
Format: Medium Paperback
R.R.P.: £8.99
US/CAN Print
ISBN: 9780857663146
Format: Large Paperback
R.R.P.: US$14.99 CAN$16.99
Ebook
ISBN: 9780857663153
Format: Epub & Mobi
R.R.P.: £5.49 / US$6.99

The Age Atomic is the sequel to Adam Christopher’s debut novel, Empire State (reviewed here).  Since that book was published, he’s also produced a superhero novel, Seven Wonders, which has been in my TBR pile since last summer.  (The Great Move happened just after that and really threw my reading schedule off; I still haven’t caught up.)

The Age Atomic continues the story begun in the first installment of this series.  When the tale opens, private investigator Rad Bradley is in the process of stumbling on a plot involving an army of robots.  If that weren’t bad enough, the Skyguard has disappeared.  So has Captain Carson.  The Fissure has as well, cutting off the Empire State from New York.

And speaking of New York, a dead woman named Evelyn McHale runs a government sponsored agency called Atoms for Peace.  What she’s doing is building a robot army to invade the Empire State.

Evelyn McHale

Christopher pulls out all the stops in this one.  There are not one but two robot armies.  (I think I see one of the reasons this novel appealed to this particular publisher.)  The writing was smoother and the characters more defined than in Empire State.  That was one of the things that appealed to me.  Christopher carefully selects some of the minor characters and lets us in on things from their viewpoints.  It deepens the story and gives it more of an epic feel.  What’s happening isn’t a battle between a few superpowered mystery men.  It will have an impact on everyone, great and small.  By fleshing out the bit players, the walk-ons, and the redshirts, Christopher adds a layer of humanity to his story.

The action moved the story along at a fast clip.  There are plenty of chases, fights, and intrigue for fans of pulp fiction.  There isn’t as much superhero action as there was in the previous novel, but that’s more than made up for by the robot armies.

If you liked Empire State, this is one you will most certainly enjoy.  Pick it up.  Adam Christopher’s books are currently Featured Books at Adventures Fantastic Books.

Here’s a sample: