The Hollywood spiral

If you like private-eye stories set in the near future, well, this one's for you. As a comet speeds toward Earth, bringing a potential apocalypse with it, private investigator Harrigan is hired to find a missing woman who, it turns out, is in possession of something that can change the world (for however long the world continues to exist). This is Neilan's first novel since 2006's Apathy and Other Small Victories, and it's a real treat: noirish in texture, with an enthusiastically imagined world and a cast of vividly realized characters. This is a world in which the internet has been supplanted by the even more immersive Grid; in which a religious cult calling itself the "fvrst chvrch mulTverse"--because "There is no I. There is no U."--has big plans; in which gangsters still exist, even if they're not what they used to be. The book doesn't take itself too seriously: it's not an outright comedy, but it certainly has its share of humorous moments. Delightful.

In this clever near-future hard-boiled detective tale from Neilan (Apathy and Other Small Victories), devastating multiple "online data hacks and security breaches" enabled a company, Zodiac, to take over the entire infrastructure of the internet, replacing it with the Grid. The Grid both provided greater security and ease of use, and rapidly became omnipresent, producing individual scores for people that were "combination credit rating and social metric." Harrigan, an L.A. private eye, who tries to minimize his time on the Grid, is approached by Stan Volga, who pays him much needed cash to trace a missing hooker named Anna. Volga wants the search kept off Grid. Harrigan accepts the job, only to rapidly run into an obstacle in the form of Charlie Horse, a vicious mobster who got his nickname from his habit of shooting out people's kneecaps. Charlie is also interested in Anna's whereabouts. The search gets even more fraught when Harrigan learns that Zodiac is looking for her as well. Neilan makes this dystopian and unsettling world feel frighteningly real. Fans of Jonathan Lethem's Gun, with Occasional Music will be enthralled. Agent: Simon Lipskar, Writers House. (June)