I ripped through the first book wildly enthused and I began this with nearly as many talons at the ready, but even though I'm giving this a solid four stars because it's a nearly perfect "undercover PI infiltrating a mob boss's organization" Noir Mystery.

I only knocked off a star because some of the middle-action was a bit repetitious and there was obviously a lot less cool fifties-robot-revolution stuff except near the end, but I suppose that couldn't have been helped because of the nature of the story.

Even so, I had a good time and the slow reveals burned nicely and kept me thinking about where and who and what was going to happen next... still questioning what might have already been happening because of Ray's little memory problem. :) Seriously. 24 hours is too short a time for all that short-term memory stuff. :) But it still makes for a great page turner!

He is, after all, the real man of steel. :)

This stuff really does hit the spot. I love Mystery/SF blends like this. Popcorn SF at its best.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC! ( )

Okay...I will admit it right off...I didn't get any of this. It brought back memories for me of Lost In Space but without Will Robinson and Dr. Smith. This robot could have used a Will Robinson. The robot...which really is kinda cute... has a daily memory gap which causes it/him to often repeat and question things...also to tell the same old jokes. The name is rather clever although I kept expecting a vacuum cleaner. I guess when you are the last of your "species" you can be given some literary slack. There was some funny parts. Sci-fi fans and noir fanatics will more than likely like it a lot more than I did. ( )

Fans of MADE TO KILL will already know all about Ray Electromatic, Ada and his line of work. Set in the 1950s, KILLING IS MY BUSINESS is the second in the trilogy based around Ray Electromatic. Part crime fiction, part science fiction, Ray is a robot, Ada is his controlling computer, and together their business, is killing. The first novel MADE TO KILL readers were introduced to Ray, the last robot in America, who covers his hired assassin persona with a day job as a private detective.

The trick here is that Ada wipes Ray's memory (? banks) every night so and must therefore be reminded every day by Ada of ... well everything. In the first novel that was an interesting idea, a way of perhaps turning a robotic assassin into something more robotic, with no chance whatsoever to question his allocated profession. By the second novel, not only does it wear a bit thin as an idea, it's not nearly as well executed and there are more than a few "well how would he know that" moments - enough to make you think that the wiping appears to be opportunistically selective at least.

KILLING IS MY BUSINESS also has a convoluted idea at the centre of the plot - after a couple of hits go wrong, Ray takes on a job getting close to a mafia boss to learn his secrets before then killing him. Leaving aside the whole idea of Ray not knowing what he'd already gleaned if his memory was constantly being wiped, there's the question of why a mafia boss would get that close to a random private detective robot in the first place. Needless to say for a lot of this novel to work you're going to have to pack up those niggles and file them under "silly fun".

Having said that, for this reader the first novel was great fun, this one considerably less so. There's nothing wrong with the writing, nor the mismash of genre's. The fifties feel is spot on, the voices of the character perfect. It's just that the central pillars seem to be tilting.

https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/killing-my-business-adam-christopher-1 ( )