Year 9, Book 35

35. Shovel Ready by Adam Sternbergh

Adam Sternbergh guested on the Extra Hot Great podcast, which I listen to, and read an excerpt from this book. I wasn’t that interested at the time because it didn’t seem to fit any genres that I normally like. It’s a cross between an old school noir detective novel and a dystopian future novel. I don’t tend to read any detective novels and the small tolerance I have for dystopian future stuff has been exhausted by the seemingly never ending stream of it since the success of the Hunger Games. However, I came across a galley copy of the book and figured I might as well give it a try.

I wound up really liking it. The author weaved the two genres together deftly and the short length made it the perfect little morsel of a book. The main character Spademan was a garbageman before events led to the dystopian future New York City is now living in. Now he’s a hit man trying to carry out orders to kill the daughter of a prominent evangelist, but things go awry leaving him on the run trying to save both his life and hers. I give it a 7 out of 10.