Night Call

May 25, 2020
Carlson debuts with a fun but formulaic thriller, the first in the Walking Shadows cyber noir series. In an alternate 1930s New York, the upper classes have migrated to a gleaming mini-city hovering above Manhattan, and robots called Automatics are treated as second class citizens. Elias Roche is a jaded ex-cop turned PI who handles sensitive cases too hot for law enforcement. When rogue robots kill three cops in a speakeasy shoot-out, the NYPD calls in Roche to investigate and assigns him Allen, a next-gen Automatic with superior deductive skills, as a partner. The mismatched duo soon discover that someone is controlling robots to take out hits on cops, and their suspicion turns toward a powerful Black Hat within the FBI. But to crack the case Roche and Allen must first learn to reconcile their differences. Carlson does a good job populating his gritty, split-level world with dodgy mobsters, deadly dames, and killer machines, but the plot follows clichéd buddy cop story beats, and the underwhelming final showdown ties things up a bit too efficiently, leaving no lingering questions for future installments. This is solid but familiar.