Intriguing set up: private investigator Alma lives and plies her trade in a near-future Britain in which most of the population has moved beyond merely being plugged in to online feeds, opting to live their lives in a virtual version of reality called "the Shine," and allowing basic robots and AIs to handle all the messy face-to-face stuff, Only a dwindling population of hold-outs (like Alma) and rejects (like her partner and lover, Madeline) occupy "the Real," leaving the Greater London setting a creepy ghost-town.
While the blurb is completely justified in describing this as "a fast-paced Hitchcockian thriller," and there are some interesting insights into the plight of those left behind --either by choice, or due to disability -- by a technology that completely changes society, the effect is slightly forgettable, as if Roberts needs to revisit these characters in further volumes, in order to flesh them out, and make them more memorable than the shadowy world they inhabit.
While the blurb is completely justified in describing this as "a fast-paced Hitchcockian thriller," and there are some interesting insights into the plight of those left behind --either by choice, or due to disability -- by a technology that completely changes society, the effect is slightly forgettable, as if Roberts needs to revisit these characters in further volumes, in order to flesh them out, and make them more memorable than the shadowy world they inhabit.
