The Automatic Detective. Martinez, A. Lee.
Tom Doherty Associates, New York.
978-0-7653-1834-3.
A. Lee Martinez, Alex Award-winning author of Gil’s All Fright Diner and the bestselling In the Company of Ogres, transports readers to a new, yet too-familiar world in his The Automatic Detective. Mack Megaton, a seven hundred pound, seven foot tall robot built for world domination, is just trying to make it in Empire City while on probation for Automated Citizen status. Basically, Mack just need to drive his cab, make his psych appointments, and keep his nose clean for the next forty-six months, six days, four hours, and twenty-two minutes. That is, until his neighbor, Julie, and her two children are kidnapped. Now Mack must navigate through the dazzling skyscrapers and sleazy back alleys of Empire City with the help of a talking gorilla, a rat-like police detective, and a brilliant blonde bombshell and her mechanical butler in order to save Julie and her kids and thwart disaster. Lovable and hilarious characters and monstrous bad guys, a city where weird science rules, and the classic detective noir tone of this story grant the reader a thoroughly engaging and delightfully funny tale characteristic of A. Lee Martinez.
