In a world where augmented-reality technology often obscures the truth, a grieving PI investigates the high-profile murders of augmented-reality company CEOs.

Private investigator Kurt Hardash is still reeling from the death of his beloved wife, lost to a pandemic disease that mimics Alzheimer’s but kills within weeks. He still can’t help himself when an old cop buddy presents him with a case: the extremely public murders of two tech CEOs at industry events, apparently by the same perpetrator. Hardash’s investigation entangles him with corrupt cops, slippery mobsters, and ultimately the origins of the disease that killed his wife.

Jim Rowson’s THE AVATAR MURDERS is a winning combination of classic noir and hard sci-fi. Hardash himself is an excellent exemplar of this combination: due to a problem with the implantation of his augmented-reality nanobots as a young man, one of his eyes sees AR and the other the unvarnished “real” world—deftly illustrating the conventions of noir (in which everyone is hiding something) with a science-fiction device. Augmented reality is already appearing in everyday life, so its use here is surprisingly grounding; none of the uses in THE AVATAR MURDERS seem far out of reach. The rich use the eponymous avatars to clothe themselves fashionably, as well as conceal signs of aging or illness; brick-and-mortar restaurants are just bland canvases for ever-changing AR décor; criminals use AR camouflage while they break into and steal cars. A society built on concealment is the perfect setting for a hard-boiled murder mystery.

And THE AVATAR MURDERS knows how to do hard-boiled. Hardash’s narrative voice is brusque and dry, its descriptive power built on the seedy world it describes. When a nearby train rattles Hardash’s grimy office, “The whole building shakes, like the wino down the street. They smell alike too.” Any work of noir needs a cast of colorful characters, and this novel is sharp and effective describing its additional personages, focusing on a single defining attribute that reveals the entirety of character. A PR-savvy CDC doctor, for instance, is singularly defined by his aggressively perfect smile: “The whitest teeth I’ve ever seen…I bet he has a podium with him all the time.” This smart, evocative descriptive strategy is supported by distinguishing voice; Hardash sounds like a terse detective, the mobsters sound like mobsters, and a harried event planner is cursing a mile a minute. Put together, the result is enjoyable and compelling.

The plot is relatively standard noir fare: a down-and-out ex-cop, working as a private eye, takes a job to stop a murder but ends up unraveling a broader conspiracy. The mob is involved; the target’s dish of a daughter has ulterior motives. But Hardash’s character is appealingly deepened—and vengefully motivated—by the death of his wife. This unusual disease follows the progression of Alzheimer’s, but in a dramatically shortened time span, and it creates a moving narrative opportunity to show Hardash caring for his spouse as her function deteriorates. These are the most real, and most human, sections of the text—providing substantial depth to what is otherwise a clever piece of genre fiction.

~Dan Accardi for IndieReader