KILLING IS MY BUSINESS – Adam Christopher

I love this series.

I recently reviewed an anthology of humorous sci-fi novellas and I mentioned that I had been in the mood for some good, fun, and funny sci-fi. That anthology did NOT do the trick, but the Ray Electromatic Mystery series works wonderfully.

Raymond Electromatic is a robot. He is the last working robot in a world that once saw robots everywhere, but a law banned the production of robots and Ray is all that remains. And Ray is programmed to be an assassin masquerading as a private detective. Ray has some serious limitations. His internal memory banks are only good for twenty-four hours and then they are erased and reused. Fortunately he has a partner, Ada, a desktop computer that remembers things for Ray and feeds him his orders.

In Killing Is My Business, Ray’s first target kills himself before Ray can make his move and Ray winds up saving the life of his second target – a classic mobster. Out of gratitude, the mob boss (Zeus Falzarano) brings Ray into his organization. Ray sees it as an opportunity to study his target, and the next day, Ray sees it as an opportunity to study his target, and the next day, Ray sees it as an opportunity … 24-hour memory span, remember?

Author Adam Christopher has taken the classic mystery/noir genre of Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe and tossed it into the future world of Asimov and Clarke, where robots are a reality, and mixes in the wackiness of Ron Goulart to create his own very unique world.

This is the third book in the series that I’ve read and I find them to just be a lot of fun … nothing too serious but with enough mystery to keep me interested. This particular book is perhaps y least favorite of the three. While the first third of the book was strong and fast and exciting, and the ending was a delight, the middle portion of this already short book was a bit repetitive. I was eagerly turning pages but then disappointed as we didn’t really seem to be moving the plot forward.

Still, this is definitely the sort of book I would take along on a trip – something somewhat light and quick to read, but with a story that catches my attention and characters that make me smile

Looking for a good book? Killing is My Business by Adam Christopher is part of the delightful Ray Electromatic Mystery series and it will make you chuckle while a robot is killing people.