LIQUID COOL: THE CYBERPUNK DETECTIVE SERIES (Liquid Cool Book 1) by Austin Dragon

Originally published in 2016.

Audiobook published by Well-Tailored books in 2024.

Read by Shamaan Casey

Duration: 11 hours, 54 minutes.

Unabridged.

Synopsis: 

Set in a future megalopolis called Metropolis, Liquid Cool is the story of Cruz, a young hustler that wants to become a private detective.

Cruz is mostly known for restoring vintage flying cars, his fedora hat, and his super attractive girlfriend that thinks he can be more than just a street hustler.

Cruz really wants to be a private detective, but obtaining a license from the city's convoluted bureaucracy is shockingly expensive. When a local boy turned millionaire offers Cruz the chance to do some detective work on the side, Cruz jumps at the opportunity. He picks up a how-to book from a famous private detective and starts to teach himself how to do the job.

After a few of these detective side gigs, an unknown benefactor offers Cruz an office and a secretary just like the ones that all of the film noir detectives have and he opens "Liquid Cool" - a detective service that cannot legally call itself a detective service because Cruz cannot afford the license.

And that's when the trouble really starts...

My Review:

This book was simply not very good. It has the basis of a good story, but it needs to be thoroughly edited. I listened to this as an audiobook and literally hours could be cut out of it. 

I know that Dragon is world building in Book 1 of what has become an eleven book series, but he introduces what feels like hundreds of characters in what seems to be an effort to have Cruz visit every corner of Metropolis just to show the reader this vision of the future. It is clear that this book was written to have sequels follow - save some of the world building for those books.

But, I had so many questions that were never answered.

For example, why is it literally always raining in Metropolis. ALWAYS. Even cities famous for their rain like London and Seattle have sunny days, but Metropolis never does. Was it due to environmental catastrophe, a nuclear war, a weather control system that was broken? Who knows.

Also, why is it such a big deal that some people own their apartments due to inheritance? This is mentioned multiple times as if it were vitally important and I never figured out why? It was part of some historically earlier troubles that led to the government structure that Metropolis has, but it is just left at that. No description of the troubles, no explanation of the apartment ownership thing. A good editor would make a note of this and it could be edited out or actually explained.

I Mentioned that I listened to this as an audiobook. It's pretty hard to make notes of egregiously bad writing when you are driving around, but I did catch these two gems that are within two minutes of one another:

"The events not only happened in close proximity, but they happened on top of each other."

"I was burning through money like a billion sheet roll of toilet paper in the center of the sun."

The audiobook was read by Shamaan Casey, an audiobook reader with quite a few projects under his belt. He did a good job with the voices and the narration.

The author did a good thing by finding a good narrator. Now, he needs to find a good editor to help this book shine.

I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5. It gets 2 stars and not 1 star because I did care about how the mystery resolved itself.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: LIQUID COOL: THE CYBERPUNK DETECTIVE SERIES (Liquid Cool Book 1) by Austin Dragon.

Note: I was sent an digital copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.