Death Tango

by M. Lachi

Overview

In a Utopian twenty-third-century New York City, where corporations have replaced governments, AI dictates culture, and citizens are free to people-watch any other citizen they choose through an app, this horror-laden Sci-Fi Thriller follows four mis-matched coeds as they attempt to solve the murder of an eccentric parascientist. Only someone or some thing able to navigate outside the highest levels of crowd-sourced surveillance could get away with murder in this town. If the team can't work quickly to solve the case, New York will be devoured by a dark plague the eccentric had been working on prior to his death, a plague which, overtime, appears to be developing sentience.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781955062732
Publisher:	Running Wild Press
Publication date:	10/02/2023
Pages:	372
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Lachi is a blind award-winning creative artist and writer who, as Founder and President of RAMPD.org GRAMMYs Board DEI Ambassador, has dedicated her platform and craft to amplifying Disability Culture, promoting inclusion and advocating for accessibility in the music and entertainment industry. Named a “dedicated foot soldier for disability pride” by Forbes, Lachi has held talks with the White House OPE, the UN, and the Kennedy Center, and has been featured in Billboard, the BBC and the New York Times for celebrating intersectionality through art.

Editorial Reviews

2023-04-05
A small group in the 23rd century investigates a murder and fights to end a plague in Lachi’s SF thriller.

When Dr. George Q. Ferguson, the brilliant scientist founder of a prestigious New York City academy, dies in a chemical explosion, several of his former students don’t believe that it was an accident (“Dr. Ferguson did not make mistakes….Accidental death wasn’t in the cards for this guy,” one asserts), and they assemble to look into it as a potential homicide. The group includes sex worker and empath Rosa Lejeune, who prefers interacting in a virtual world rather than in the flesh, and Torian “Tory” Ross, the chief crisis officer at the world’s largest conglomerate, who also happens to be transhuman (outfitted with technological implants and grafts). They team up with the same company’s CEO and founder, Paul Oscar Ryland Perry, and skilled biohacker Kris Johnson to investigate and question a host of murder suspects. Things take an unexpected turn when a flu outbreak hits the city that has a link to a brand-new element that the professor discovered. Now they’re determined to do something about the infected people, whose groans and surging numbers make them akin to zombies. Lachi loads the narrative with multidimensional characters and subplots. Rosa, for example, endures a disturbed ex’s relentless harassment and enters into a complicated relationship with the magnetic but entitled CEO. Such characterization makes for a sharp thriller, and it’s one that boasts chic tech—most notably the complicated Ncluded wristbands that keep everyone connected. There’s welcome humor, too; Kris’ blasé attitude is quite charming, as is the talking, sable-spotted Jack Russell robot at his side. The tale veers into a surprising direction in the latter half, as Rosa learns that she has a powerful ability. This, coupled with the intensifying plague, sidelines the entertaining murder mystery, but Lachi’s swift pacing propels a story that manages to wrap up nearly everything while leaving a few juicy items for a possible sequel.

An impressive cast enhances an engrossing distant-future tale.

Kirkus Reviews