Titanium Noir (Cal Sounder Series)

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Cal Sounder is a detective working for the police on certain very sensitive cases. So when he's called in to investigate a homicide at a local apartment, he is surprised at first to see that the victim appears to be a rather typical techie. But on closer inspection, he finds the victim is over seven feet tall. And even though he doesn't look a day over thirty, he is actually ninety years old. Clearly, he is a Titan - one of this dystopian, near-future society's genetically-altered elites. Thank goodness I try not to judge a book by its cover, but even so that GREEN caused me to leave this on my "should I or shouldn't I?" list for far too long. Because it turns out this way just what I needed after a spell of too much non-fiction and too many memoirs.

Titanium Noir - Better As An Alloy - The Quill to Live Titanium Noir - Better As An Alloy - The Quill to Live

Titanium Noir is the perfect title for this science fiction PI murder mystery. The dry tone, the worldbuilding, the clever observations and actions, and the solution came together for me perfectly. I could not have enjoyed myself more. I loved Cal and the all the Titan stuff was terrific. However, it also works wonderfully as a crime/detective novel and I was completely engaged in a very dark murder investigation.Cal Sounder is a man with a very specific job. Some might say he’s a cop, others may just refer to him as a detective, but really he’s more a medical private eye. He’s only hired whenever a Titan might be involved in a case. A chemically enhanced elite member of society who has forgotten mortality, and grown to eight feet tall, with the mass to match. Only those worthy of the serum (read: friends with the inventor/rights holder), and physical/mental fortitude to survive the process have access. So it’s definitely not good that one of them has been found dead, and Sounder has to mind his footsteps as he rummages through the evidence, lest he trip under the unimpeded footsteps of the very Titans he’s trying to exonerate.

TITANIUM NOIR | Kirkus Reviews

If you're a fan of both noir and science fiction, you're bound to love this book. But even if you're not, you will still likely enjoy it. Give it a read. Drugs is at the center of the crime/mystery, in this case one that can make "superhuman." To solve the case, Cal not only has to follow clues, but listen to the way people at the bottom of the heap view their world, which was especially well done. Cal’s ex, Athena, daughter of discoverer of Titanium 7, and now herself a Titan, is interested in the case: at some stage, Roddy’s research involved work for Titan mogul, Stefan Tonfamecasca. Because it involves Titans, Cal needs to be diplomatic: rich and powerful means something a little different for a Titan: many are wealthy, but, given their size, their power is often physical and as well as influential. I must say I enjoyed every moment of Titanium Noir—it’s very noir, hard edged, smart and at times tragic.

I had a lot of fun with this book. I highly recommend it to mystery fans, Noir fans, Speculative Fiction fans and anyone who is looking for a well-told tale that entertains you while making you think about how the world works. Son of the late John le Carré, Harkaway comes by his moody thriller credentials honestly. Yet here he echoes not his father so much as the Thomas Pynchon of Inherent Vice. His book stars schmo of a detective Cal Sounder, who’s pulled into a tangled tale of corporate intrigue and ethnic cuisine (“the Goan-Hungarian place is called Bela’s but the chef’s name is Atilla....His wife, Mâri, runs the business and she’s the brains”). The men blunder through, for the most part, while the women do the thinking. One topic at the top of everyone’s list is why a “nerd,” as Sounder describes him, should be lying dead on his apartment floor, his outfit a pastiche of high-flood pants, a clip-on tie, and orthotic shoes that “complete the anti-chic vibe.” Oh, and the dead nerd with the bullet in his brain is 7 feet, 8 inches tall and 91 years old: a superman, in other words, known in Harkaway’s metropolis of the near future as a Titan. And how does one get to be so old and gigantic? Therein lies a tale of genetic manipulation—familiar to fans of movies such as RoboCop and Elysium—the mastermind of which is, naturally, a Very Bad Man—or half-man, half-whatever—named Stefan Tonfamecasca. The mad science required to produce a Titan might be intellectually interesting, but it has produced a few monsters to make Sounder’s life miserable. And, Tonfamecasca being the creator of a new life form, who knows how many to produce before “ruining that post-scarcity thing for the few”? There are the inevitable crooked cops and femmes fatales (some of them quite oversized) along with some fun culinary side notes (“Barbecue...is the only food apart from lobster where a grown man is permitted to wear a bib without criticism”) to pepper Harkaway’s tale. As Cal delves deeper into the investigation, it becomes evident that the roots of the crime run deep and threaten to shatter his world and the lives of those around him. No es que sea muy fan de la novela negra clásica, pero en un contexto de ciencia ficción que bordea la mitología griega, está para mi cerca (aunque mejor escrito) de la clase de historias que podemos encontrar en la saga de Harry Dresden.

Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway - BookPage Book review of Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway - BookPage

Cal Sounder's Noirish style of commentary on his investigation into the death of a man that it shouldn't have been possible to murder served to integrate a complicated and intriguing murder plot and a view of a future world that made the gap between the really rich and the rest even more impossible to close than it is today. Titans are almost exclusively ultrarich or highly influential, their physical stature often merely a reflection of their broader social power. Stefan Tonfamecasca, the creator of T7 and controller of its distribution, is now impossibly huge as a four-dose Titan. Cal is Stefan’s liaison with law enforcement, sparing the police from dealing with the ruling rich of the city while also keeping Titan problems from escalating out of control. But Cal’s latest case is especially challenging: A Titan has, somehow, been murdered. Titanium Noir is a fun, twisty detective novel with a big science-fiction idea at its center. Harkaway puts a new spin on classic noir themes.” Cal Sounder is a detective working for the police on certain very sensitive cases. So when he’s called in to investigate a homicide at a local apartment, he is surprised at first to see that the victim appears to be a rather typical, milquetoast techie. But on closer inspection, he finds the victim is over seven feet tall. And even though he doesn’t look a day over thirty, he is actually ninety years old. Clearly, he is a Titan—one of this dystopian, near-future society’s genetically-altered elites. There are only a few thousand Titans worldwide, all thanks to Stefan Tonfamecasca’s discovery of the controversial T7 genetic therapy, which elevated his family to near godlike status. A dead Titan is big news... a murdered Titan is unimaginable. Cal Sounder is occasionally hired by the police as a specialist detective when certain sensitive cases need a special touch. Thanks to a controversial new gene therapy drug, T7, there are a few thousand elite Titans. Taller, stronger and bigger in every way, Titans are men and women rich enough to buy themselves out of death. So when one does turn up dead, Cal has the right insider knowledge and connections to investigate it without becoming public knowledge, especially because his ex-girlfriend, Athena, is not only a Titan herself but also the daughter of the man who invested T7, Stefan Tonfamecasca. But when a Titan turns up murdered, then even Cal must think differently to find a killer before they strike again.

As Cal digs deeper into the murder investigation, he begins to unravel the complicated threads of what should have been a straightforward case, and it soon becomes clear he’s on the trail of a crime whose roots run deep into the dark heart of the world. Titanium Noir is a tightly woven, intricate tale of murder, betrayal, and vengeance. The story is told in a self-consciously Noir style that I enjoyed - think Raymond Chandler but replace the misogyny with dry, sometimes self-effacing humour. It was boldly done and rarely over-reached itself. As Cal digs deeper into the murder investigation, he begins to unravel the complicated threads of what should have been a straightforward case, and it soon becomes clear he's on the trail of a crime whose roots run deep into the dark heart of the world. Titanium Noir is a tightly woven, intricate tale of murder, betrayal, and vengeance. Three woman who join together to rent a large space along the beach in Los Angeles for their stores—a gift shop, a bakery, and a bookstore—become fast friends as they each experience the highs, and lows, of love. But the SF element drew me. The writing is a tour-de-force. Such tight, descriptive, stylish prose, blending noir and Blade Runner-esque mean streets with a SFnal overlay. What kept me going was Cal Sounder's sardonic humor, as well as the sense that he was a good person at the substrate.