The Dark Side

March 14, 2016
Noir reigns supreme in this mystery set on the far side of the Moon. Damien Justus is the new lieutenant in Sin, the major city in billionaire criminal tycoon Fletcher Brass’s colony on Earth’s moon. Settled by fugitives from Earth, Sin is not accustomed to the honest police work and hard-boiled ethics that Justus delivers, though he might be exactly what the city needs. Somebody is assassinating Sin’s elite, and Justus doesn’t yet know lunar politics well enough to suss out the outright lies from mere misdirection. Meanwhile, a homicidal android with delusions of grandeur is taking advantage of a communications blackout to murder his way across the Moon in search of El Dorado, or Oz, or anywhere else he might conquer. The story is rife with morbid humor and tense action that make excellent use of the setting. Some readers might be shocked to find themselves cheering for a killer robot who’s never heard of the Tin Man but wants to be the Wizard; some might wish that O’Neill had omitted the traditional noir mistreatment of female characters. The rest will be too busy chuckling to look below the surface.

This stark, shining work is powerfully told by Steve West, whose character portrayals and command of accents are mind-boggling. One minute he's the hard-as-nails police detective who is transferred to the hellish town of Purgatory, on the dark side of the moon. Next, he is a dysfunctional, serial-killing android that speaks in a polite British accent when he's not wiping out those in his path. Then, he's the boorish Fletcher Brass, the billionaire who runs the town, which is a place of last resort for killers, perverts, war criminals, and brave tourists. There are so many incredible events, observations, and details in this novel that listeners will find themselves stopping and pondering their ramifications even as the characters take them for granted. M.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine