The judas cypher by Greg Dragon.
This is book 1 of the sythn crisis series.
A good read. Good story but a little slow. It kept on with Dhata too much. I liked Jason more than Dhata. I liked how he was with the bloodbath. He looked after Dhata. I did find this slow but I did read it. Just took me a while. 3*.

This just was not for me.
I found the characters bland and the story line so very slow.
It really was a struggle for me to finish.

When a planet becomes polluted through the actions of humans, how do you clean it to make it more habitable ?

The solution was to create and build synthetics humans ( synths ), or androids, who look and act like human beings.

When they have done their job, what then happens to them ?

They become recognised but have no rights. They are employed as waitresses, babysitters, maids, taxi drivers, jobs that do not require a high level of skill. They are worked long hours for little pay. Not everyone likes them or accepts them, but there are some that are sympathetic.

Dhata Mays is a bounty hunter and private investigator in the employ of active police officer Jason Dale. When a body is dicovered Jason calls on ex policeman Dhata to help him with the case. They initially think it is the body of a syth, but when it is discovered that it is a human, and a judge with it's spine removed things take a turn for the worse.

The trail of the killer leads to the underworld of gangs, criminal bosses and power mad individuals. It will need the help of both human and synthetic to discover why a spine would be removed with surgical precision.

In a futuristic world where people have ICL's (Internal Contact Lens) implanted in their eyes to access internet and personal computers, cybernetic enhancements and body parts are the norm, the power struggles are the same ones that have always been around. It is just now the struggles are between Human and Synthetic.

Given the subject matter, it would be easy to think that this would be a very technological reliant story. But it isn't, is does have a few terms, but none that leave you in confusion, and a glossary at the end to recap is handy. It has a good solid plot and an all round good murder / thriller. I enjoyed this book and would recommend.

Why DNF? Feels like average mystery P.I. story with sci-fi added to it (which is good if you are into that type of story), “synthetic racism” which gave me a bad taste of trying to equate racism with not liking synths, all in all it could be summed up with I just am not caught by the story

Liked: Sci-fi bend to a mystery story, the murder and mystery is actually interesting, also the cover