Blood World

June 1, 2020
In this imaginative near-future crime novel from Mooney (the Darby McCormick series), some people have become carriers of an enzyme that produces “unbelievable amounts of energy.” Abductions of carriers by criminals who want to monetize their blood by selling transfusions to the affluent have become so widespread that the LAPD has formed a Blood Crimes Unit. Officer Ellie Batista wants to join the unit because her twin brother, a carrier, was kidnapped when they were six, and she hopes that access to the unit’s intel will enable her to find him. Batista gets a break when her patrol car strikes a dog wandering in the street whose tag bears bloodstains and the words “Help Us.” She and her partner trace the dog to a nearby house, where two carriers are being held captive. After the subsequent deadly encounter with the crooks holding the carriers, Batista is tapped by her commissioner to go undercover into the blood world. While Mooney’s worldbuilding is underdone, he maintains suspense throughout, and even engenders empathy for a bad guy. Those looking for an SF variant on a familiar thriller trope—the dedicated undercover cop taking on a vicious drug network—will be rewarded. Agent: Josh Getzler, HG Literary.

June 1, 2020
Edgar-nominated Mooney (World without End, 2001) sets his latest in present-day Los Angeles, but there's a difference: carriers, people with genes that make their blood a kind of fountain of youth, are prey to a vicious underworld that seeks to trap them on blood farms. One such victim may be a young man nicknamed JC, a carrier who was kidnapped as a child and whose sister, Ellie Batista, now an up-and-coming LAPD officer, sets her sights on a career that will help find him. Undercover, she risks everything by working with the head of a blood farm, a character whom readers will love to hate as he seeks gruesome revenge on those who endanger his business even as he shows his bruised inner life and capability for human feeling. Several tense scenes will keep readers on edge as they race with Batista toward a satisfying cliff-hanger ending. Given our current circumstances, biotech story lines are bound to intrigue patrons for the next while. Recommend where John Marrs' The One (2018) and The Passengers (2019) are popular.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)