by David Brin
First published 2002
Albert Morris makes his living as an investigator in a future where people create disposable duplicate bodies to handle dangerous work. He has sent his own copies into deadly situations more times than he wants to count. When Morris takes a case involving bootleggers who make illegal copies of a famous actress, he discovers something much bigger. Dr. Yosil Maharal, a researcher working on artificial intelligence, has disappeared just as he neared a major scientific discovery. His daughter Ritu fears he has been kidnapped or killed. Aeneas Polom, a wealthy recluse who only appears in public through expensive platinum duplicates, hires Morris to find Maharal before his discovery falls into dangerous hands. Morris must navigate Dittotown's violent streets and enter a dark world where memories cannot be trusted and the boundary between life and death has blurred beyond recognition.
Genres: science-fiction, mystery, thriller, cyberpunk
Vibes: dark, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Dittotown
Period: future
569 pages · Mass Market Paperback · Tor Science Fiction
Content warnings: violence