Sally Strange reviewed Bang Bang Bodhisattva by Aubrey Wood
Queer noir cyberpunk mystery = fun
5 stars
Keira is a hacker-for-hire. She's happily ensconced in an unassuming but functional apartment with her girlfriend and her boyfriend. Of course something is going to interrupt the throuple's domestic bliss. One thing is that the apartment owner is raising the social score required for rental, which means that they need to bring in more money. Another is that Keira's lawyer, who was helping her with her legal name change, is killed and the NCPD (that's NEW CARSON, not Night City, but it may as well be Night City) wants to pin it on her. Fortunately she has help from her luddite P.I. friend to figure it out while evading the cops. Of course, she wouldn't be in this bind if she hadn't accepted that job from Herrera in the first place.
This is a real queer, noir, cyberpunk whodunnit, leaving almost nothing to be desired from that genre. There's humor …
Keira is a hacker-for-hire. She's happily ensconced in an unassuming but functional apartment with her girlfriend and her boyfriend. Of course something is going to interrupt the throuple's domestic bliss. One thing is that the apartment owner is raising the social score required for rental, which means that they need to bring in more money. Another is that Keira's lawyer, who was helping her with her legal name change, is killed and the NCPD (that's NEW CARSON, not Night City, but it may as well be Night City) wants to pin it on her. Fortunately she has help from her luddite P.I. friend to figure it out while evading the cops. Of course, she wouldn't be in this bind if she hadn't accepted that job from Herrera in the first place.
This is a real queer, noir, cyberpunk whodunnit, leaving almost nothing to be desired from that genre. There's humor and there's horror (mostly courtesy of law enforcement). There's shady dames and untethered androids. There's streamer celebs and deadly hacked cars. The twists and turns were unpredictable (to me anyway, but keep in mind I'm not a HUGE mystery reader) and the ending wrapped up the loose ends satisfactorily, without foreclosing the possibility of a sequel or two. For a debut novel, it really is a triumph.
