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ROBOT DETECTIVE: A Sci-Fi Noir Novel
He’s a cop. He’s a robot. And he’s done trying to pass.
In a city cracking under pressure between humans and synthetics, Detective Nick Schneider doesn’t wear skin—or play by anyone’s rules. When a senator’s daughter turns up dead with black-market limbs, Schneider and his grudge-bearing partner must navigate a maze of corruption, tech, and identity politics. What they uncover could start a war—or get them both killed.
Gritty, fast, and darkly funny, Robot Detective delivers a future-noir punch for readers who crave tech-drenched mysteries, moral gray zones, and antiheroes who don’t flinch when the city burns.
In a city cracking under pressure between humans and synthetics, Detective Nick Schneider doesn’t wear skin—or play by anyone’s rules. When a senator’s daughter turns up dead with black-market limbs, Schneider and his grudge-bearing partner must navigate a maze of corruption, tech, and identity politics. What they uncover could start a war—or get them both killed.
Gritty, fast, and darkly funny, Robot Detective delivers a future-noir punch for readers who crave tech-drenched mysteries, moral gray zones, and antiheroes who don’t flinch when the city burns.
- GenresScience FictionMystery
356 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 5, 2024
111 people are currently reading
38 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
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January 12, 2026 Don't know what to say. Couldn't decide on a rating. Couldn't pick a genre.
Good prose, good characterization, inconsistent world building (to say the least), a story that makes no sense, and a theme.
Jumble is made by finding several leftovers in the fridge, throwing them into a frying pan, cracking an egg or two over the mess and cooking it. It tastes just fine. So did the book.
Good prose, good characterization, inconsistent world building (to say the least), a story that makes no sense, and a theme.
Jumble is made by finding several leftovers in the fridge, throwing them into a frying pan, cracking an egg or two over the mess and cooking it. It tastes just fine. So did the book.
January 2, 2026
The title might lead you to expect an updated version of Daneel Olivaw, the robotic detective in Isaac Asimov’s classic Caves of Steel (which introduced the equally classic Three Laws of Robotics in 1954), but the intriguing cover illustration suggests something rather more noir. And even a short acquaintance with police detective Schneider of New DC tells you he mostly follows his own laws. First, he’s a “synthetic,” not a robot, and at, best a second-class being (definitely not human), designed and manufactured by SynCorp to serve a specified purpose -- in his case, to be an investigator. But his brain is as complex as any human’s (that was SynCorp’s big breakthrough) and he has free will, despite his built-in skills. He’s one of the earlier models, much older than he looks, and his eventual reaction to the way human society usually treats his kind was to give up trying to pass for human by having his flesh-like fake skin stripped off. He is who he is, take him or leave him.
Schneider has recently been transferred to a new precinct (he caused a fracas at the last one) and he has a new partner in the person of Franco, a big beefy cop of the old school (fists first, brain work later, if ever) who isn’t happy with the new arrangement, but they’re stuck with each other. (Frano has his own cop-type problems at home, but he also has hidden depths that will emerge later when they’re really needed.)
The crime that kicks the story of is the discovery of two vey dead synth hookers, one male and one female, in a scruffy apartment down on the Dirty Boulevard (so-called because of all the synthetics who live in the area). The thing is, both are missing their legs. It doesn’t appear to be a torture killing, a hate crime kind of thing, and both detectives are very puzzled by it all. And It’s not legally murder, either, since they aren’t human, just a property crime, but Schneider isn’t going to let it go -- especially not after he discovers this killing wasn’t the first of its kind.
The farther you go into the story, the weirder things get, and the author’s vivid style will quickly have you hooked. Don’t assume the author is a lightweight or a novice, either, just because this book is available through Kindle Unlimited. He has produced a wide variety of fiction, ranging from thrillers to tales of hope and redemption, and has won awards for his work. There’s no indication that this is the first in a series, but maybe we’ll see more of Schnieder yet.
Schneider has recently been transferred to a new precinct (he caused a fracas at the last one) and he has a new partner in the person of Franco, a big beefy cop of the old school (fists first, brain work later, if ever) who isn’t happy with the new arrangement, but they’re stuck with each other. (Frano has his own cop-type problems at home, but he also has hidden depths that will emerge later when they’re really needed.)
The crime that kicks the story of is the discovery of two vey dead synth hookers, one male and one female, in a scruffy apartment down on the Dirty Boulevard (so-called because of all the synthetics who live in the area). The thing is, both are missing their legs. It doesn’t appear to be a torture killing, a hate crime kind of thing, and both detectives are very puzzled by it all. And It’s not legally murder, either, since they aren’t human, just a property crime, but Schneider isn’t going to let it go -- especially not after he discovers this killing wasn’t the first of its kind.
The farther you go into the story, the weirder things get, and the author’s vivid style will quickly have you hooked. Don’t assume the author is a lightweight or a novice, either, just because this book is available through Kindle Unlimited. He has produced a wide variety of fiction, ranging from thrillers to tales of hope and redemption, and has won awards for his work. There’s no indication that this is the first in a series, but maybe we’ll see more of Schnieder yet.
September 29, 2024
This novel is dressed up as Science Fiction, but its roots are in the good old-fashioned detective tale. Except for his lack of skin, Schneider is the epitome of underdog detectives, looked down upon by his workmates, reviled by the public, watched with suspicion by his superiors and viewed with frustration by those who try to befriend him. His independent attitude doesn’t help.
In his society, robots have come a long way from Daneel Olivaw, but humans haven’t made the same progress. Thematically, this is a thinly disguised repeat of the struggles of blacks, women, gays, and other minorities to take their rightful place in society.
This is an impressive book because it is all so neatly put together. It’s a complicated plot with a surprisingly small number of characters, much more closely interwoven than at first appears. So, as the reader gets closer to the end the “Oh, so that’s why…” responses increase as everything becomes clear, and it all fits together like a jeweler’s jigsaw puzzle.
The main benefit of this tight mix is that there are few minor characters. Everybody gets enough page time for us to get to know them, and in the end, everybody counts. We like most of them, we sympathize with all of them, and finally, we have to make up our minds who to cheer for.
The multiple points of view are handled cleanly, and the reader is able to keep the character map clearly in mind. Except in a few cases, all of which lead to the biggest “Oh, that’s why…” in the story.
This is an original plotline, complicated but handled beautifully. The world building is kept to a minimum of essential qualities, and the sci-fi tech stuff doesn’t interfere with the action or the story. The writing style is clean, simple, and unobtrusive.
Highly recommended for Sci-Fi and real-time fans of good detective fiction.
This review was originally posted on Reedsy Discovery.
In his society, robots have come a long way from Daneel Olivaw, but humans haven’t made the same progress. Thematically, this is a thinly disguised repeat of the struggles of blacks, women, gays, and other minorities to take their rightful place in society.
This is an impressive book because it is all so neatly put together. It’s a complicated plot with a surprisingly small number of characters, much more closely interwoven than at first appears. So, as the reader gets closer to the end the “Oh, so that’s why…” responses increase as everything becomes clear, and it all fits together like a jeweler’s jigsaw puzzle.
The main benefit of this tight mix is that there are few minor characters. Everybody gets enough page time for us to get to know them, and in the end, everybody counts. We like most of them, we sympathize with all of them, and finally, we have to make up our minds who to cheer for.
The multiple points of view are handled cleanly, and the reader is able to keep the character map clearly in mind. Except in a few cases, all of which lead to the biggest “Oh, that’s why…” in the story.
This is an original plotline, complicated but handled beautifully. The world building is kept to a minimum of essential qualities, and the sci-fi tech stuff doesn’t interfere with the action or the story. The writing style is clean, simple, and unobtrusive.
Highly recommended for Sci-Fi and real-time fans of good detective fiction.
This review was originally posted on Reedsy Discovery.
January 2, 2026
7/10
Couldn't resist when 2 of my favorite genres come together, Sci‐fi AND a Noir detective.
Our detective is a robot who eschews the synthetic skin his fellow robots wear to make them fit in to human society. He's paired up with a stereotypical loudmouth detective (with the typical marital problems, bad attitude towards authority, yadda yadda) - actually the police station where they work is your typical testosterone filled police officers with the humour and intelligence of toddlers.
They are asked to investigate the murders of two "synths" both of whom have had their robotic arms removed. Whilst the murders are certainly in the foreground of the story, there is plenty of political machinations going on in the background on whether Synthetics should have the same rights as humans. There is connected threads here between Schneider the detective and his 'adopted' daughter Jess who is fighting hard for the rights of Synthetics, however that thread is extremely tenuous.
There's also a couple of 'scientists' whose work is extremely dodgy but they too have threads connecting to our detective.
If you like crime, mysteries and 🤖 you'll have some fun with this book
Couldn't resist when 2 of my favorite genres come together, Sci‐fi AND a Noir detective.
Our detective is a robot who eschews the synthetic skin his fellow robots wear to make them fit in to human society. He's paired up with a stereotypical loudmouth detective (with the typical marital problems, bad attitude towards authority, yadda yadda) - actually the police station where they work is your typical testosterone filled police officers with the humour and intelligence of toddlers.
They are asked to investigate the murders of two "synths" both of whom have had their robotic arms removed. Whilst the murders are certainly in the foreground of the story, there is plenty of political machinations going on in the background on whether Synthetics should have the same rights as humans. There is connected threads here between Schneider the detective and his 'adopted' daughter Jess who is fighting hard for the rights of Synthetics, however that thread is extremely tenuous.
There's also a couple of 'scientists' whose work is extremely dodgy but they too have threads connecting to our detective.
If you like crime, mysteries and 🤖 you'll have some fun with this book
November 25, 2025
While the central preoccupation of a book on robot detectives will always be the degree to which our hero is either of these categories ,inevitably this query is resolved in a much larger issue of what it means to behave like a hero.
In a world like ours where the gap between what you say and what you do grows increasingly perilous,in this case the MC fulfills all of the current demands and then some, particularly around the issues of ethical behavior in a swampy sea of graft, corruption, ideological fanaticism ,greed ,Envy ,jealousy and stupidity :all things surely found in society at large but particularly writ large in metro police stations
What is especially gratifying here is that all the characters, including obnoxious small children, get treated with the humanitarian brush and come alive under Goodman's deft observations thru lenses of human,urban and cultural behavior. Life proceeding perversely onward in the midst of lunacy.
Like others I hope to see Schneider poke his shiny metal face around a bullet spattered doorway someday soon
Recommend highly
In a world like ours where the gap between what you say and what you do grows increasingly perilous,in this case the MC fulfills all of the current demands and then some, particularly around the issues of ethical behavior in a swampy sea of graft, corruption, ideological fanaticism ,greed ,Envy ,jealousy and stupidity :all things surely found in society at large but particularly writ large in metro police stations
What is especially gratifying here is that all the characters, including obnoxious small children, get treated with the humanitarian brush and come alive under Goodman's deft observations thru lenses of human,urban and cultural behavior. Life proceeding perversely onward in the midst of lunacy.
Like others I hope to see Schneider poke his shiny metal face around a bullet spattered doorway someday soon
Recommend highly
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December 27, 2025After reading some of the other reviews here, I think some reviewer's problem with the story not being futuristic enough can be solved by looking at the setting as being an "alternative" 80s, rather than occurring sometime in the future. Although I have to admit I am a reader who is more than willing to just jump into a story like this with both feet and accept the world I land in.
Now, as for the reason why I gave the book only four stars... there are some annoying editorial errors... quotation marks around descriptive passages, characters identified as answering their own questions, and one scene toward the end where one character is identified by name, then after much action is simply referred to by their pronoun which required a couple reads to remember which character it was. Small errors in an otherwise well-written book, but still annoying.
Overall, the settings, characters and action sequences were well-done. If sci-fi noir appeals to you, check this out, it's a fun quick read.
Now, as for the reason why I gave the book only four stars... there are some annoying editorial errors... quotation marks around descriptive passages, characters identified as answering their own questions, and one scene toward the end where one character is identified by name, then after much action is simply referred to by their pronoun which required a couple reads to remember which character it was. Small errors in an otherwise well-written book, but still annoying.
Overall, the settings, characters and action sequences were well-done. If sci-fi noir appeals to you, check this out, it's a fun quick read.
November 27, 2024
Sadly this didn't live up to what I was expecting. It didn't really feel like Noir or Sci-fi.
I read the physical book and I really love the feel of this book, and thankfully the font makes it easy to read but I really just wanted more action and something to happen. (It also needed a different editor to move things along and fix the mistakes).
The short chapters really pulled the story along but by page 100 nothing had really happened! You could tell what happened in the first 100 pages in just two sentences.
By the half way mark things were still plodding along. It would go off in tangents (ie. like the detectives daughter and their relationship, then you would not see or hear from her for the next quarter of the book). Thankfully the last 100 pages really tied it up well and made it worth reading.
I read the physical book and I really love the feel of this book, and thankfully the font makes it easy to read but I really just wanted more action and something to happen. (It also needed a different editor to move things along and fix the mistakes).
The short chapters really pulled the story along but by page 100 nothing had really happened! You could tell what happened in the first 100 pages in just two sentences.
By the half way mark things were still plodding along. It would go off in tangents (ie. like the detectives daughter and their relationship, then you would not see or hear from her for the next quarter of the book). Thankfully the last 100 pages really tied it up well and made it worth reading.
August 29, 2025
Rating: 3.5 - 4 stars
I bought the Kindle edition as soon as it was released. I admit to not having known much about it other than the cover art and the title summary. This is primarily a police procedural. The MC, Schneider, is part of a minority group (synthetics - easily exchangeable for any minority of your choice). I rounded my rating up from 3.5 to 4 stars because I hope that the author will one day write more stories about these characters.
SUMMARY: He’s a cop. He’s a robot. And he’s done trying to pass. In a city cracking under pressure between humans and synthetics, Detective Nick Schneider doesn’t wear skin—or play by anyone’s rules. When a senator’s daughter turns up with black-market limbs, Schneider and his grudge-bearing partner must navigate a maze of corruption, tech, and identity politics. What they uncover could start a war—or get them both killed.
I bought the Kindle edition as soon as it was released. I admit to not having known much about it other than the cover art and the title summary. This is primarily a police procedural. The MC, Schneider, is part of a minority group (synthetics - easily exchangeable for any minority of your choice). I rounded my rating up from 3.5 to 4 stars because I hope that the author will one day write more stories about these characters.
SUMMARY: He’s a cop. He’s a robot. And he’s done trying to pass. In a city cracking under pressure between humans and synthetics, Detective Nick Schneider doesn’t wear skin—or play by anyone’s rules. When a senator’s daughter turns up with black-market limbs, Schneider and his grudge-bearing partner must navigate a maze of corruption, tech, and identity politics. What they uncover could start a war—or get them both killed.
December 2, 2025
Good story and interesting concept but not quite 4 stars
I would have liked to have given this more than 3 stars - it was a good story and interesting. However, it was basically a good noir detective story using "sci fi" as a "vehicle". To me, it was to "jarring" to have a futuristic "synthetic person" in basically a 1980s setting but with a few electric cars to say it's futuristic. Most of the settings, tools, vehicles, homes, buildings, etc were still in the 80s which, again, did not jive with the synthetic people that would be at least 50 years in the future from now!
I would have liked to have given this more than 3 stars - it was a good story and interesting. However, it was basically a good noir detective story using "sci fi" as a "vehicle". To me, it was to "jarring" to have a futuristic "synthetic person" in basically a 1980s setting but with a few electric cars to say it's futuristic. Most of the settings, tools, vehicles, homes, buildings, etc were still in the 80s which, again, did not jive with the synthetic people that would be at least 50 years in the future from now!
February 1, 2026
Outstanding.
A well written and very fun read. This meets all the test of syfy yet is fully relatable. It breaks the rules in only the best places and uses cultural references that while slightly out of place in the timeline, perfectly ground the readers understanding of the narrative. I especially like the point that advertising a moral issue on Fox would be a waste of time. This is worth 5 stars whether on Kindle reading subscription or at full price. Very, very highly recommended.
A well written and very fun read. This meets all the test of syfy yet is fully relatable. It breaks the rules in only the best places and uses cultural references that while slightly out of place in the timeline, perfectly ground the readers understanding of the narrative. I especially like the point that advertising a moral issue on Fox would be a waste of time. This is worth 5 stars whether on Kindle reading subscription or at full price. Very, very highly recommended.
December 24, 2024
This is compulsive, pulp reading of the best kind. Remember when you were a kid and you picked up your first paperback at the drug store after slogging through Ethan Frome at school, and then your mind was blown by how readable, enjoyable and scintillating a book could be? The turning of pages, the development of a story? Goodman has done that here, with a sci-fi detective yarn that has just enough sociopolitical thinking to lodge it firmly in our time.
November 21, 2025
Excellent story
This is the first book that I have read by Shawn Goodman. It probably not be the last. It is an excellent noir story set in an alternate modern day, where androids with artificial intelligence and emotions, have been in use for many years. The characters live. The story has held my attention, which is not always easy when you are busy. I recommend this book to you.
This is the first book that I have read by Shawn Goodman. It probably not be the last. It is an excellent noir story set in an alternate modern day, where androids with artificial intelligence and emotions, have been in use for many years. The characters live. The story has held my attention, which is not always easy when you are busy. I recommend this book to you.
February 1, 2026
Fantastic
An incredibly well written story with a gripping plot and great characters. I myself am a person of a nervous disposition and the story was so frightening I nearly gave up several times. I am glad I kept going. My dread of what was going to happen was softened by the sensitive way the writer dealt with the more grim bits of the story. A great ending.
An incredibly well written story with a gripping plot and great characters. I myself am a person of a nervous disposition and the story was so frightening I nearly gave up several times. I am glad I kept going. My dread of what was going to happen was softened by the sensitive way the writer dealt with the more grim bits of the story. A great ending.
January 5, 2026
A worthy read.
Very well choreographed novel. When I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about going back to reading it. Familiar concepts are sprinkled throughout, which only add to its entertainment value, in my view.
Very well choreographed novel. When I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about going back to reading it. Familiar concepts are sprinkled throughout, which only add to its entertainment value, in my view.
January 31, 2026
a nice light read
I’m thinking beach fare. Characters,especially the protagonist, are less fully drawn than more compelling fare like the Murderbot series. Ditto for the future society and robot consciousness. Lots of action and enjoyable overall.
I’m thinking beach fare. Characters,especially the protagonist, are less fully drawn than more compelling fare like the Murderbot series. Ditto for the future society and robot consciousness. Lots of action and enjoyable overall.
April 25, 2025
Great new scifi! Highly recommend. Think noir detective and androids. Loved!
November 24, 2025
Excellent
I loved it. Schneider is a brilliant character in the very best noir tradition. I hope he gets another outing.
I loved it. Schneider is a brilliant character in the very best noir tradition. I hope he gets another outing.
December 5, 2025
A good read. Liked the ending, which suggests there is another novel coming soon, unless it's already out.
January 9, 2026
Very enjoyable and much more of a gritty noir detective who done it than sci-fi , I hope there are more stories which involve these two .
February 1, 2026
4.5 rounded up. Works very well as a modern/sci-fi/futuristic noir.
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