Killing Is My Business Deepens the Mystery of Its Robot Noir

His day-to-day is not unlike picking up the second novel in Adam Christopher’s LA Trilogy, Killing Is My Business. While it takes place after series opener Made to Kill and builds on the world (and mysteries) constructed there (and in a related short story and novella), you can easily pick it up and follow the case to the finish, with no prior knowledge required.
That is to say, while you should absolutely read the first novel of Christopher’s hard-boiled robot noir series, you don’t have to in order to relish the action in this sophomore effort. With exposition and background sprinkled throughout, it’s as if Ada is feeding you the same recaps she does to Ray each and every morning.
And what recaps they are: Ray’s a holdover from a time when robots were as common on the street as you and me. In his version of 1960s Hollywood, however, Ray’s the last tinman standing. To make a living, and spurred on by the electric genius of computer Ada, Ray has turned from a life of dogged detective work to a career of for-hire assassinations, though he still has plenty of time for shoe-leather research and surveillance.

But sometimes the jobs aren’t always what they seem, and that’s continually the case in Killing Is My Business.
Ray’s programmatic constraints add an interesting twist to the standard detective novel. He can be on a job for weeks, but he’ll have to be reminded each morning of any progress he’s made, and what he needs to do next. And that’s exactly where he’s finds himself in the beginning of this novel, as we (and he) learn he’s been on the tail of one Vaughan Delaney for three weeks.
Finally, he’s ready to go in for the kill, and to appease his anonymous client’s needs, when he witnesses Delaney come sailing out of his office window. It seems like a suicide—a fortuitous bit of business for Delaney’s would-be assassin—but this wouldn’t be a true noir if there wasn’t far more beneath the surface.
Ray’s next job is similarly botched, and just as his sensors begin to go into overdrive, Ada delivers another (more involved) client request: he’ll need to infiltrate a crime syndicate before he can get to the business of actually killing.
Just how these events are connected will take Ray deep into an operation much larger than he’s ever conceived, and figuring out the identity of his unknown client nicely sets up the third and final installment of the series.

Christopher performs the tricky dance of a middle novel admirably, giving the story a full arc while continuing to build the trilogy’s momentum. Uncovering the intertwined secrets of the events of Killing Is My Business only gives Ray partial relief and adds some intriguing friction in the otherwise symbiotic relationship between robot and computer.
Raymond Chandler may never have pictured his own gumshoes and troubled dames mingling with the oddities of science fiction, but Christopher mixes the concoction beautifully, mimicking the repetitive, rhythmic dialogue of Chandler’s best with the complicated inner life of his metallic hero.
The result is a protagonist who knows how to pick a lock, tie 52 kinds of nautical knots, withstand a barrage of bullets, and, truly, worm his way into your heart.
Killing Is My Business is available July 25.