Mark Butz Idolon

Idolon

Mark Butz

Bantam, Aug 2006, $6.99

ISBN: 0553588508

San Francisco Police Detective Van Dijk investigates the murder of a Doe with no match in the DiNA database, but the victim contains electronic skin and philm technology that brings alive in her case Barbara Stanwick and Gene Tierney on her epidermis. Van Dijk concludes that this dead one was used as a toy by a rich patron, as only those with money can afford this type of "reprogramming", especially something the homicide detective has never encountered before.

Pelayo earns a living as a guinea pig testing state of the art electronic skin and philm technology. He is fortunate to live as many in his line of work fail to survive the experiments to bring new products to the market for the wealthy to buy once they are proven safe for opulent human consumption. Pelayo visits his cousin Marta, who works at a cinematique that sells discounted unsafe electronic skin products to the impoverished masses, but she has vanished with indentured servant and philm techno-smuggler Nadice, who hides a special contraband growing inside her womb. Soon Pelayo's amateur sleuth hunt for his cousin and Van Dijk's official homicide investigation merge at a resort planning a new wave of technological use and discard the masses as test subjects for the pleasure of their affluent clients.

Geometrically extrapolating current American trends in technology and economics, Mark Butz provides a dark future in which a few own everything while most are throwaway "volunteers" for electronic experiments. The story line stuns the audience from the opening police procedural and amateur sleuth search and never de-shocks the reader as the two mystery subplots merge. The audience slowly understands the full implications of what is going on in a society in which technology enables the past to be the realism of the present. Fans of frightening futuristic visions will appreciate the stunning IDOLON tattooing society.

Harriet Klausner