Titanium Noir (2023) by Nick Harkaway
Good Reads meta-date is 236 pages, rated 4.06 by 4,705 litizens.
Genre: Sy Fy.
DNA: UK.
Verdict: Enough, already!
Tagline: All show, no go.
Our hero gets caught between the Titans and, well, other Titans. These titans really are big, and one can only become a titan with the wealth of an Arab oil sheik. Think of them as bodybuilders on the ultimate steroid. They are the 1% who own the government, police, media, and …. When one of them is murdered, who you gonna call? Someone who can’t say no, that’s who: a Tiny investigator with gum on his shoe and chip on his raincoat shoulder.
The murdered Titan was an odd ball, even, or especially for a Titan, and Investigator spends a lot of time and adds to the body count unravelling the deceased’s past. How did such a schomo get to be a Titan? And what was he up to once he became? And what does cage fighting have to do with it? All good questions.
The plot is outlandish, to say the least, but the pace, the dialogue, my curiosity kept me reading, but – warning – the author seems to think ‘noir’ means keeping the reader in the dark. Much of the dialogue is cryptic and incomprehensible. There are pages and pages of pointless banter filling out the bulk. Passing points are laboured and pivotal plot points flash by.
It is sold as noir but I would say it is more nihilism than noir. Part of a series, but this one is probably enough for your reader to ingest (but not digest).