The Immune System

February 2, 2015
In Larson’s offbeat third and final novel set in a dystopian, depopulated future New York City (after 2012’s The Nervous System), Dewey Decimal continues his self-imposed task of restoring order to what’s left of the books in the main branch of the New York Public Library, but he must also answer to U.S. Sen. Clarence Howard, who gives him two assignments almost guaranteed to result in failure. The first is to scope out the homeless squatters occupying the southern end of Central Park and warn them that Howard wants them gone in 72 hours. The second is to protect a royal brother and sister, members of the House of Saud, who are due to visit the ruined city. Dewey is an unlikely hero, a gimpy, smart-mouthed loner, obsessed with a brand-name hand sanitizer. His indomitable spirit and his distinctive ghetto-infused, educated patter give Larson’s series its unique and spicy character.

March 1, 2015
In post-apocalyptic Manhattan, antihero Dewey Decimal comes to the end of the stacks. This is the final volume in a crisp dystopian crime trilogy by Larson (The Nervous System, 2012, etc.), so new readers are advised to start with The Dewey Decimal System (2011). Our narrator is many things: a black-ops veteran with a particularly gruesome set of combat skills; a slave to the obsessive-compulsive disorder that keeps him popping pills, rubbing on hand sanitizer, and organizing the stacks at the New York Public Library; and one of the most dangerous freelance assets in the city. Our man hasn't changed in the interim-as the book opens, Dewey has his foot squarely on the throat of a soldier who's been marked for revenge. Dewey is a funny cat-a fiercely intelligent, multilingual man whose cynical, staccato lingo and casual violence belie his true character. "Well, I ask you now, you think I cherish these sorry situations?" he asks. "This lopsided sadism? Think I get jiggy on the misfortune of my fellow travelers? Not so, y'all, not so." Dewey is still serving as muscle for corrupt Sen. Clarence Howard, who charges his hired gun with disrupting a group of anarchist squatters who are troubling the shadow government he serves. Secondly, Dewey finds himself tasked with protecting a pair of twins, Saudi royalty no less, in order to ensure the continuation of the family bloodline. As he gets closer to the truth about his part in his city's misfortunes, Dewey also struggles with his own place in this dark metropolis. "Oh, I'm know I'm a monster," he admits. "The question is, am I just garden variety, like everybody else-like I did what I done to keep kicking? Or, despite my Code, despite my System, do I carry a yawning black abscess where my soul should be, burning with fever, flush with infection?" A sharp and satisfying conclusion to one of the most unique hard-boiled arcs in recent memory.

April 1, 2015
The Dewey Decimal trilogy wraps up with, finally, a full explanation of the events that nearly wiped out New York City; and, with a tough choice for Dewey, our near-future amateur-librarian hero (he must decide whether to be part of the city's ruling elite, working for the devious Senator Howard, or to light out on his own and take his chances in the wilds of NYC). This is the kind of novel that could have been written by Alfred Bester, author of such classic SF as The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man. Like Bester, Larson treats the English language as a sort of toy to play with and use for experimentation; language is not just used to tell the story, in other words, but is a part of the story, an extension of its narrator, Dewey Decimal, one of the more offbeat characters in fiction. A fitting conclusion to a unique and memorable trilogy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)