Exploded View

In this clumsy debut, McPheeters attempts to combine science fiction with a gumshoe adventure. Terri Pastuszka is a jaded LAPD homicide detective worn down by the futility of policing a city that’s struggling to recover from a thermonuclear war. She is guided by the PanOpts system, wearable technology that monitors the jurisdiction. Terri cares little for the victims in her cases, or any other human beings. When she is assigned to investigate the murder of a refugee, she is drawn into mystery that extends through unrelated lives and brutal deaths, and which may end in her own demise. McPheeters fills the first third of the novel with dragging exposition about virtual reality, too fascinated by that idea to reveal his characters or their motivations. When he finally presents the more interesting crime procedural, it is a sharp relief from the tedium that preceded it. The resolution, once again tied too tightly to PanOpts, negates the high-stakes adventure he has created for his characters. Though the mystery is solved, the solution is as empty and meaningless as the technology it’s based on. Agent: Scott Gould, RLR Associates. (Oct.)