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Killing is My Business: 2 (LA Trilogy) Paperback – 25 July 2017
- Print length400 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherTitan Books Ltd
- Publication date25 July 2017
- Dimensions19.7 x 2.5 x 12.9 cm
- ISBN-109781783296910
- ISBN-13978-1783296910
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Product description
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About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : 1783296917
- Publisher : Titan Books Ltd (25 July 2017)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 400 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9781783296910
- ISBN-13 : 978-1783296910
- Dimensions : 19.7 x 2.5 x 12.9 cm
- Best Sellers Rank: 1,931,721 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 72,009 in Adventure Stories & Action
- 144,636 in Science Fiction (Books)
- 163,095 in Mysteries (Books)
- Customer reviews:
About the author
New York Times Bestselling author Adam Christopher’s debut novel Empire State was SciFiNow’s Book of the Year and a Financial Times Book of the Year.
The author of Made To Kill, Standard Hollywood Depravity and Killing Is My Business, Adam’s other novels include Seven Wonders, The Age Atomic and The Burning Dark.
Author of official tie-in novels for the Netflix phenomenon Stranger Things, the hit CBS television show Elementary and the award-winning Dishonored video game franchise, Adam is also the co-creator of the 21st century incarnation of Archie Comics superhero The Shield, and has contributed prose fiction to the world of Greg Rucka and Michael Lark’s Lazarus series from Image Comics.
Adam is a contributor to the internationally bestselling Star Wars: From A Certain Point Of View anniversary anthology series, and has written for the all-ages Star Wars Adventures comic from IDW. His debut Star Wars novel, Shadow of the Sith, was published in June 2022 and was an instant New York Times Bestseller.
Born in New Zealand, Adam has lived in Great Britain since 2006.
Visit www.adamchristopher.me
Customer reviews
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- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 August 2017Not my usual genre for reading but great fun, clever and very pacy
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 May 2018Growing up I was a voracious reader. I loved books of all kinds, from Asterix comics to Agatha Christie mysteries, action-adventure books to Tolkien, CS Lewis, and Roald Dahl. I was a bit more into dwarves and dragons fantasy than sci-fi, though I did love the likes of John Christopher's "The Tripods" series.
A couple of years ago, I was blown away by a sci-fi/mystery crossover, the brilliant MADE TO KILL by Adam Christopher; 1960s California noir, just with a robot detective. It was incredibly clever and incredibly fresh, a wonderful story and world.
So I went into KILLING IS MY BUSINESS, the second Ray Electromatic novel in a planned LA trilogy, with some pretty high expectations. Maybe that played a part in me feeling post-read like it fell into the 'good' category rather than the 'rave about to everyone' category of the first. Christopher tells another very good tale, and the pages whir and are full of action and intrigue as Ray's latest adventures unfold. But there's a little bit of a 'bridge' feeling, as if things are being set up for a grand finale, perhaps, rather than this being a standalone brilliant book. The Two Towers effect, maybe.
There's plenty of energy and life to Christopher's storytelling. He crafts a great sense of the world of his book, a version of 1960s Los Angeles full of the gleaming movie stars, shadowy crooks, and Cold War worries of the time. Ray is an interesting 'hero', a hulking robot with no long-term memory as his tapes are wiped at the end of each day. The latter is an interesting device that sets up lots of possibilities and raises plenty of questions, plot and character-wise. There were occasions in this second novel where it felt a little played out, though perhaps Christopher is setting readers up.
Overall, this was a fast, interesting read that perhaps gets a little knocked down more due to the brilliance of its predecessor more than any inherent issues with this tale. Christopher set the bar very high in MADE TO KILL, and maybe he didn't quite vault it this time around. But he's still got another turn to go, and he's shown he's got plenty of 'hops' in his arsenal. I look forward to the finale.
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 September 2017Killing Is My Business is robot P.I/recently re-programmed hitbot, Raymond Electromatic’s second outing. I missed out on the first instalment of the trilogy, Made To Kill, so I read this as a stand alone. I really enjoyed this novel for many reasons but two stuck out in the crowd. The first was Christopher’s cool, charming and quirky writing style, he is obviously having a lot of fun with this series and it shows. Secondly I thought that the robot element of this Crime/Noir novel was impressively fleshed out. AC did a great job of keeping the reader’s focus on the fact that we are reading from a robot’s perspective. This made Raymond’s presence in the story meaningful instead of just an eccentricity.
Raymond is the last remaining robot from a government project that was shut-down almost immediately after production began. Ray was programmed to be a private investigator but was recently reconfigured to take on assassination contracts. This story begins with Ray stalking a fresh target courtesy of his computer boss Ada at the Electromatic Detective Agency. Before Ray can get to him, the target takes a dive out of his office window and dies on impact. Not common but it does happen. Next on his list is a real estate developer who hasn’t been seen on weeks. Another dead end…
Finally Ray gets a contract that will keep him busy. Saving a Mafia boss from a shootout, then becoming his body guard so he can kill him when the client is ready. When Ray saves the life of Zeus Falzarano (great name I know), he is sucked into a plot that will take him right back to the roots of his creation. It is a great plot, fundamentally simple but suits a robotic protagonist well. Ray is an accomplished detective, despite his technological misgivings, and is focused on breaking the case wide open. I thought the pacing was spot-on and the development of Ray’s case to be engaging and filled with mystery.
My main problem with the novel was the fact that there is not many characters to invest in, mainly just Ray, as all the secondary characters are hit and miss. With the exception of Ada. I like her as a presence, especially in terms of her dynamic with Ray. It was this duo that kept me reading and I thought their pairing was fascinating. This is where AC’s writing shines and it is brilliant. My favourite element has to be the echos and ghosts in their programming that gives the reader the sense that they are real people instead of just machines.
I thought Ray was the perfect protagonist for this story, though it is made clear from the beginning that he is an unreliable narrator due to memory limitations (24 memory tapes). This makes Ray’s own narration of events slightly jumbled up and adds an element of mystery to the story. Ray is interesting lead character with his robotic abilities, enjoyment of human practices such as reading books or eating/drinking (which he can’t actually do) and capabilities as an assassin. I would recommend this novel to those readers who enjoy crime/noir with a twist. In my opinion it is a sucess and I can’t wait for book three!
Top reviews from other countries
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Peer SylvesterReviewed in Germany on 3 February 2020
5.0 out of 5 stars Originelle Version von Hard Boiled Krimis
Vorweg: Das dies der zweite Band ist, habe ich erst gemerkt, als ich nach der Lektüre weitere Bücher der Serie gesucht habe. Man muss den ersten also nicht gelesen haben und man braucht auch den dritten nicht zu lesen - die drei Bücher sind absolut unabhängig voneinander. Was sogar sinn macht, bedenkt man das Setting:
Prinzipiell ist das Buch eine Hommage an die klassischen Pulp/Hard boiled Krimis: 50er Jahre, Privatdetecktiv, coole Sprüche etc. Der wesentliche Unterschied: Der Protagonist ist ein Roboter. Und dessen beschreibbarer Speicher hält nur etwa 20 Stunden, danach vergisst er alles und wird von seiner "Sekretärin" wieder neu gefüttert. Natürlich macht es daher sinn, dass die drei Bücher abgeschlossen sind - erledigte Fälle vergisst er ja wieder.
Das Setting macht Spaß, der Stil ist gut getroffen und die Geschichte ist spannend, wenn auch etwas abgedreht. Ich werde mir auf jeden Fall die anderen beiden Bände auch zulegen!
- Perceptive ReaderReviewed in India on 23 March 2019
2.0 out of 5 stars Tiresome
When you think about a PI infiltrating a mob and ruining it from the inside, you think of Conan Doyle as in the 'Valley of Fear'.
Or, even better, you think of 'Red Harvest'!
Instead, you find yourself stuffed with an apologetic killing machine that talks to itself and its controller AI, and keeps talking.
Tiresome. Very-very tiresome, without the grim humour or the tautness that such works deserve.
- Someone ElseReviewed in the United States on 19 April 2024
4.0 out of 5 stars Awesome robot noir
I loved this one almost as much as I loved the 1st in the series. There were a couple of dry spells, but they paid off at tue end. I could tottally see myself hanging out with the mc 😊
- FredTownWardReviewed in the United States on 20 January 2019
4.0 out of 5 stars The Scheme Gets Much More Complicated
This is the middle book of the trilogy, after the prequel short story: Brisk Money, after the first novel in the trilogy: Made to Kill, and after the sequel novella to the first novel: Standard Hollywood Depravity, but only the first book in the trilogy is absolutely necessary to read.
After two recent assassination jobs fail (one is killed by someone else; one just flat out disappears) the last robot hitman, Raymond Electromatic, gets his weirdest assignment yet: save a guy’s life so that he can infiltrate his gang and more easily kill him later.
Then things get complicated,... MUCH more complicated.
Like most middle books in a trilogy this book is fairly complex, both in what it reveals and what it does not, but while you will have to read the final book in the trilogy: I Only Killed Him Once to get the full details, it is safe to say that by the end of this sordid mess, the last robot detective ever, reprogrammed into being the last robot hitman ever, no longer trusts his boss, the room filling computer who reprogrammed him, Ada,...
and has made some changes in order to deal with it….
Note: If you like the premise of noirish robot detectives, I can also recommend A. Lee Martinez’s The Automatic Detective.
- Christian RudderReviewed in the United States on 6 November 2019
2.0 out of 5 stars Progression is slow and over used jokes/imagery
It was exciting at first, but the progression is so slow it gets boring. A lot of the same jokes are reused over and over again. I like a descriptive noir but all the pointless observation feels like air in a lays bag.