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Juno is a dirty cop with a difficult past and an uncertain future. When his family and thousands of others emigrated to the colony world of Lagarto, they were promised a bright future on a planet with a booming economy. But before the colonists arrived, everything changed. An opportunistic Earth-based company developed a way to produce a cheaper version of Lagarto’s main export, thus effectively paupering the planet and all its inhabitants.
Growing up on post-boom Lagarto, Juno is but one of the many who live in despair. Once he was a young cop in the police department of the capital city of Koba. That was before he started taking bribes from Koba’s powerful organized crime syndicate. Yet despite his past sins, some small part of him has not given up hope. So he risks his life, his marriage and his job to expose a cabal that would enslave the planet for its own profit.
But he's got more pressing problems, when he's confronted with a dead man, a short-list of leads, and the obligatory question: who done it? Set up for a fall, partnered with a beautiful young woman whose main job is to betray him, and caught in a squeeze between the police chief and the crooked mayor, Juno is a compelling, sympathetic hero on a world that has no heroes.
An exciting science fiction adventure and a dark, gritty noir thriller told in taut, powerful prose, this is a remarkable debut novel.
Growing up on post-boom Lagarto, Juno is but one of the many who live in despair. Once he was a young cop in the police department of the capital city of Koba. That was before he started taking bribes from Koba’s powerful organized crime syndicate. Yet despite his past sins, some small part of him has not given up hope. So he risks his life, his marriage and his job to expose a cabal that would enslave the planet for its own profit.
But he's got more pressing problems, when he's confronted with a dead man, a short-list of leads, and the obligatory question: who done it? Set up for a fall, partnered with a beautiful young woman whose main job is to betray him, and caught in a squeeze between the police chief and the crooked mayor, Juno is a compelling, sympathetic hero on a world that has no heroes.
An exciting science fiction adventure and a dark, gritty noir thriller told in taut, powerful prose, this is a remarkable debut novel.
336 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published June 26, 2007
31 people are currently reading
1272 people want to read
About the author
Warren Hammond
25 books102 followersWarren grew up in the Hudson River Valley of New York State. Upon obtaining his teaching degree from the University at Albany, he moved to Colorado, married his wife Kathy, and settled in the Platt Park neighborhood of Denver where he can usually be found typing away at the local coffee shop or browsing the selection at the Tattered Cover.
His first novel, KOP, was published by Tor Books in 2007. Its sequel, Ex-KOP, is due to hit shelves in October of 2008. Currently, he is writing KOP Killer, the third book in the KOP series.
Splitting his time between devouring science fiction and classic crime noir, he lists among his important influences Arthur C. Clarke, Orson Scott Card, Jim Thompson and James Ellroy. Warren is a serious music listener, specializing in blues, reggae and surf.
Always eager to see new places, Warren and Kathy have traveled extensively. Whether it’s wildlife viewing in exotic locales like Botswana and the Galapagos Islands, or trekking in the Himalayas, they’re always up for a new adventure.
Series:
* Juno Mozambe Mystery
His first novel, KOP, was published by Tor Books in 2007. Its sequel, Ex-KOP, is due to hit shelves in October of 2008. Currently, he is writing KOP Killer, the third book in the KOP series.
Splitting his time between devouring science fiction and classic crime noir, he lists among his important influences Arthur C. Clarke, Orson Scott Card, Jim Thompson and James Ellroy. Warren is a serious music listener, specializing in blues, reggae and surf.
Always eager to see new places, Warren and Kathy have traveled extensively. Whether it’s wildlife viewing in exotic locales like Botswana and the Galapagos Islands, or trekking in the Himalayas, they’re always up for a new adventure.
Series:
* Juno Mozambe Mystery
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 119 reviews
April 16, 2012
70% hardboiled detective mystery +
30% science fiction thriller +
100% of it so grim, dark and noiry that you’d need a military searchlight just to brighten it up to bleak...
Equals a shockingly good, knock-me-down surprise that far exceeded my expectations.
A win...a gem...a terrific discovery.
PLOT SUMMARY:
Juno Mozambe is a dirty, dirty cop. I mean filthy. He’s an enforcer/bag man man for the Chief of Koba’s Office of Police (aka KOP), where he spends his days collecting payoffs from bars, brothels, drug dealers and gambling operations. Juno’s also getting old, has tremors in his hands and is about at the end of his rope with the life he’s chosen.
Things are bad.
But on the backwater planet Legarto, bad always seems to move steadily towards worse, and Juno gets a nasty chunk of luck when he’s pulled into investigate a brutal murder that may have serious, planetwide political ramifications. What follows is 300+ pages of one of the best pieces of hardboiled detecting that I’ve read outside the classics.
THOUGHTS:
Don’t let the SF wrapper fool you, this is a superb mystery, with an excellent, complex plot, and an extremely well-drawn, if deeply flawed, main character. You’ll be shocked at some of the things Juno does, and at how much you are still able to sympathize with him.
Like I said...it’s a win. An unheralded novel that needs more people to love it (186 ratings as of this review is a crime.)
For me, what makes KOP standout, especially given the myriad of Blade Runner-like stories that have a similar footprint, is four fold:
1. Convincing, Consistent World Building:
Everything about the setting made sense within the context of the fundamental conceit of a SF novel. Lagarto, a frontier planet on the outskirts of Earth-centered human expansion, was a place of unbelievable wealth because of a rare brandy that could only be produced there. Unfortunately, after two saplings of the indigenous tree from which the brandy is grown were smuggled back to Earth, the economy crashed faster and harder than Charlie Sheen’s career.
Now, millions of refugees (i.e., those poor, hopeful prospectors who were on the 24 year journey from Earth to Legarta when the economy went in the crapper) live vice-ridden, shanty-like existences in the cracks of their now dead dreams.
You can feel the desperation in the world around you...and you can believe it.
2. Courageous Writing:
When I say this story is bleak, I mean Russian tragedy/Wuthering Heights/Cormac McCarthy bleak, with nary a quanta of light to be found. To Hammond’s credit, he never backs off from this approach because the story won’t allow it. He tells this tale the way it has to be told, and in so doing, he distinguished himself as a brave, principled story teller in the process. A tip of the cap to you Mr.Hammett Hammond.
3. Robust Mystery:
The plot, the motives, the turns and twists, the betrayals, the corruption, the clues, the witnesses, the politics, the step by step process of investigation, the methods, the interrogations, the back-tracking, the final resolution...very, VERY well done.
4. Genuine, 3D Characters:
Superbly done. What most impressed me about the characters is how genuine they felt. Not only did you not have the Hollywood “change of heart redemption” that can just destroy credibility, but you also don’t have the convenient “over the top” betrayals and WTF narrative twists that have you thinking the author got lazy and reached for a deus ex machina. Hammond’s characters ring true to who they are right up until the very end and I kept waiting for something that never came...thankfully.
Overall, I was very impressed with this story, particularly since it was a random buy a few years ago, and I really wasn’t expecting anything more than a light diversion after finishing Catch-22. Well, I was ordering book 2 before I even finished this and have stumbled onto a new series that I really enjoy.
4.0 stars. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!
30% science fiction thriller +
100% of it so grim, dark and noiry that you’d need a military searchlight just to brighten it up to bleak...
Equals a shockingly good, knock-me-down surprise that far exceeded my expectations.
A win...a gem...a terrific discovery.
PLOT SUMMARY:
Juno Mozambe is a dirty, dirty cop. I mean filthy. He’s an enforcer/bag man man for the Chief of Koba’s Office of Police (aka KOP), where he spends his days collecting payoffs from bars, brothels, drug dealers and gambling operations. Juno’s also getting old, has tremors in his hands and is about at the end of his rope with the life he’s chosen.
Things are bad.
But on the backwater planet Legarto, bad always seems to move steadily towards worse, and Juno gets a nasty chunk of luck when he’s pulled into investigate a brutal murder that may have serious, planetwide political ramifications. What follows is 300+ pages of one of the best pieces of hardboiled detecting that I’ve read outside the classics.
THOUGHTS:
Don’t let the SF wrapper fool you, this is a superb mystery, with an excellent, complex plot, and an extremely well-drawn, if deeply flawed, main character. You’ll be shocked at some of the things Juno does, and at how much you are still able to sympathize with him.
Like I said...it’s a win. An unheralded novel that needs more people to love it (186 ratings as of this review is a crime.)
For me, what makes KOP standout, especially given the myriad of Blade Runner-like stories that have a similar footprint, is four fold:
1. Convincing, Consistent World Building:
Everything about the setting made sense within the context of the fundamental conceit of a SF novel. Lagarto, a frontier planet on the outskirts of Earth-centered human expansion, was a place of unbelievable wealth because of a rare brandy that could only be produced there. Unfortunately, after two saplings of the indigenous tree from which the brandy is grown were smuggled back to Earth, the economy crashed faster and harder than Charlie Sheen’s career.
Now, millions of refugees (i.e., those poor, hopeful prospectors who were on the 24 year journey from Earth to Legarta when the economy went in the crapper) live vice-ridden, shanty-like existences in the cracks of their now dead dreams.
You can feel the desperation in the world around you...and you can believe it.
2. Courageous Writing:
When I say this story is bleak, I mean Russian tragedy/Wuthering Heights/Cormac McCarthy bleak, with nary a quanta of light to be found. To Hammond’s credit, he never backs off from this approach because the story won’t allow it. He tells this tale the way it has to be told, and in so doing, he distinguished himself as a brave, principled story teller in the process. A tip of the cap to you Mr.
3. Robust Mystery:
The plot, the motives, the turns and twists, the betrayals, the corruption, the clues, the witnesses, the politics, the step by step process of investigation, the methods, the interrogations, the back-tracking, the final resolution...very, VERY well done.
4. Genuine, 3D Characters:
Superbly done. What most impressed me about the characters is how genuine they felt. Not only did you not have the Hollywood “change of heart redemption” that can just destroy credibility, but you also don’t have the convenient “over the top” betrayals and WTF narrative twists that have you thinking the author got lazy and reached for a deus ex machina. Hammond’s characters ring true to who they are right up until the very end and I kept waiting for something that never came...thankfully.
Overall, I was very impressed with this story, particularly since it was a random buy a few years ago, and I really wasn’t expecting anything more than a light diversion after finishing Catch-22. Well, I was ordering book 2 before I even finished this and have stumbled onto a new series that I really enjoy.
4.0 stars. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!
February 22, 2020
'Kop' by Warren Hammond is a dark detective noir masquerading as science fiction. The narrator, Juno Mozambe, is a corrupt police officer on the impoverished planet Lagarto. Lagarto has two cities, Koba and Loja, both of which are slums since Lagarto's economy crashed. Only the corrupt leaders of the planet are wealthy. Juno used to work for Paul Chang, Koba's chief of police, as Chang's enforcer but Juno had to downgrade to collecting 'protection' fees from merchants because of nerve damage to his right hand.
Paul Chang is sharing in on the profits of Koba's most notorious crime cartel, the Ram Bandur outfit, currently being run by Ben Bandur. Paul and Juno are best friends, having come up through the ranks of Koba's police together. Paul is educated and ambitious, Juno is not, but the two became loyal friends. Juno is aware of Paul's activities, and he feels protective of Paul no matter what.
Carlos Simba, Loja crime lord, is the main competitor of the Bandurs. Lately, Simba has been making moves into the Bandurs' territory of Koba. The corrupt mayor of Koba, Samir, has suddenly turned on Paul, forcing Paul to accept a supposed investigator, Karl Gilkyson, looking for financial and other misdeeds of the Kops, the police force of which Paul is chief. Then, a strange homicide occurs.
Juno gets a call from Paul. Paul wants Juno to come back to Homicide and take over the investigation of the murder of Lieutenant Dmitri Vlotsky. Paul also wants Juno to accept a partner, Maggie Orzo, new to the police force and a daughter of a wealthy family living on Orbital-1, a high-tech ring circling Lagarto. Juno doesn't want the case, and he definitely doesn't want the innocent Orzo working with him! But Paul is desperate. So. Juno agrees.
The case soon involves every bad guy on the planet! Will Juno get out of this alive?
Frankly, I think the novel teeters on the edge of parody although it has every dark element of a noir (not graphic) and none of a satire or comedy. I suspect a little comedy or tongue-in-cheek would have improved this unrelentingly bleak book for me. The problem is it is a noir on steroids without even a hint of a hero. Juno's subsequent heroism is in the service of helping Paul or himself. Both of these characters are wearers of dark-grey hats - which, even though not as black as the other antagonists, are still very dark. However, there is a LA Confidential (the 1997 movie) flavor to the book. I loved LA Confidential, the movie!
Link to trailer on YouTube:. https://youtu.be/6sOXrY5yV4g
I am thinking two-and-a-half stars for 'Kop', but maybe it will read better for you. These characters live on a planet that has no economic or social exit except corruption and strong-arm banditry, so the fact that everyone preys on everybody else is logical. The plot makes sense given the architectural perimeters. I am judging it by the genre type, not as a literary book. For me, this was a song consisting of only two alternating notes (duh DUH duh DUH). Perhaps young men who play shoot 'em up video games will like the novel best. Sorry to say.
A question for those of you who have read this - I get that it's a jungle planet, humid and sweaty, with low-end tech or none for the masses, kind of like a South-American city suffering from colonialism. But doncha think they would have figured out a way to do something about all of the lizards?
Paul Chang is sharing in on the profits of Koba's most notorious crime cartel, the Ram Bandur outfit, currently being run by Ben Bandur. Paul and Juno are best friends, having come up through the ranks of Koba's police together. Paul is educated and ambitious, Juno is not, but the two became loyal friends. Juno is aware of Paul's activities, and he feels protective of Paul no matter what.
Carlos Simba, Loja crime lord, is the main competitor of the Bandurs. Lately, Simba has been making moves into the Bandurs' territory of Koba. The corrupt mayor of Koba, Samir, has suddenly turned on Paul, forcing Paul to accept a supposed investigator, Karl Gilkyson, looking for financial and other misdeeds of the Kops, the police force of which Paul is chief. Then, a strange homicide occurs.
Juno gets a call from Paul. Paul wants Juno to come back to Homicide and take over the investigation of the murder of Lieutenant Dmitri Vlotsky. Paul also wants Juno to accept a partner, Maggie Orzo, new to the police force and a daughter of a wealthy family living on Orbital-1, a high-tech ring circling Lagarto. Juno doesn't want the case, and he definitely doesn't want the innocent Orzo working with him! But Paul is desperate. So. Juno agrees.
The case soon involves every bad guy on the planet! Will Juno get out of this alive?
Frankly, I think the novel teeters on the edge of parody although it has every dark element of a noir (not graphic) and none of a satire or comedy. I suspect a little comedy or tongue-in-cheek would have improved this unrelentingly bleak book for me. The problem is it is a noir on steroids without even a hint of a hero. Juno's subsequent heroism is in the service of helping Paul or himself. Both of these characters are wearers of dark-grey hats - which, even though not as black as the other antagonists, are still very dark. However, there is a LA Confidential (the 1997 movie) flavor to the book. I loved LA Confidential, the movie!
Link to trailer on YouTube:. https://youtu.be/6sOXrY5yV4g
I am thinking two-and-a-half stars for 'Kop', but maybe it will read better for you. These characters live on a planet that has no economic or social exit except corruption and strong-arm banditry, so the fact that everyone preys on everybody else is logical. The plot makes sense given the architectural perimeters. I am judging it by the genre type, not as a literary book. For me, this was a song consisting of only two alternating notes (duh DUH duh DUH). Perhaps young men who play shoot 'em up video games will like the novel best. Sorry to say.
A question for those of you who have read this - I get that it's a jungle planet, humid and sweaty, with low-end tech or none for the masses, kind of like a South-American city suffering from colonialism. But doncha think they would have figured out a way to do something about all of the lizards?
January 15, 2016
Is there such a thing as a good psychopath?
Lizards.
I think so. I mean, if you move past the fact that ‘psychopath’ is more or less defined as evil. But what about a person who lacks any sort of emotional warmth or empathy? Couldn’t this person use his intellect to make the choice of doing the right thing? Couldn’t this person be taught – by himself or others – to mechanically follow a righteous path? Or is it true what Robin Williams says to Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting: that you can never substitute the mind for the heart? that you can know everything there is to know about a thing and still not grasp the feel of it?
Lizards.
Well, the author Warren Hammond is banking that you can accept the notion of a good psychopath. The protag, one Juno Mozambe, certainly fits the bill. He’s a dirty cop, an ex-enforcer, whose best trait is loyalty, backed up by a strong right hook. A good character for this sci-fi noir tale of murder and corruption. I’d call it LA Confidential with sci-fi trappings, but that’d be an insult to both LA Confidential and sci-fi trappings.
Lizards.
Which isn’t to say that it’s a bad book. It’s as solid as they come. But there’s no spark to it. Raymond Chandler, one of the founding fathers of noir, wrote, “In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption.” He continued, “But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.” And later concludes, “The story is the man’s adventure in search of a hidden truth…”
Lizards.
Unfortunately, none of this applies to KOP. Juno Mozambe is mean and tarnished and afraid. He searches for no hidden truth. There is no quality of redemption in this story. It becomes quite clear, once mysteries begin getting revealed, that this is the case. It is, in the end, a straight-forward story of two detectives doing the proper legwork and getting their perp.
Lizards.
A good noir is more that, isn’t it? A good noir is imbued with the qualities of Romance. I don’t mean kiss kiss romance, but Romance of the Tolkien, Shakespearean, Homeric sort. The world is a place of dark chaos and the detective moves through it like a mean ol’ lighthouse. He is a blood-stained knight fighting the good fight against Entropy. A good noir book acknowledges the grime, muck, and corruption of daily life, yet it seeks ever to rise above it. Good noir shows the reader the attitude necessary to live in a dirty world and still do good.
Lizards.
KOP has none of that. It tells you a whole lot of nothin’ about how to deal with the crap of the world. I never could put my finger on exactly what is wrong with KOP, why it felt so lifeless. But if I were forced to offer some diagnosis, it’d be something like: KOP is a genre boilerplate, through n through, and it’s rife with plot errors and poor focus.
Lizards.
For example, from the backcover: “The colony world Lagarto boomed when an indigenous plant was discovered to yield a uniquely intoxicating brandy… but when Earth synthesized a copy, Lagarto’s economy crashed.” Okay. Cool. Strange that that’s the first sentence but whatever. And then later on page 54: “Somebody had smuggled a pair of brandy tree saplings offplanet, and soon after all the settled planets began raising their own fruit.” Wait what? Did Earth synthesize a copy or was the sapling just transplanted? A minor detail, surely, and true it is. But it’s characteristic of an inelegance that spreads throughout the book. The protag’s shaky gunhand is mentioned over and over, to the point where I’m thinking okay this is gonna play a major part in a major standoff. Nope! Turns out no one gave a damn about it actually. Juno’s shaky hand caused him to miss ONE shot, but it didn’t matter.
Lizards.
OKAY. ENOUGH WITH THE F#(*ING LIZARDS. actually, damnit, I give up on this review. Here it is in TEN words:
Lizards. Lizards. Lizards. Lizards. Shaking fist. Lizards. Lizards. Offworlders. Lizards. Offworlders.
BAM. KOP EXPERIENCE.
Honestly, you wanna read some sci-fi noir? Read Altered Carbon. It’s better in every way. Except that it mentions lizards fewer times. So… still better in every way.
Lizards.
I think so. I mean, if you move past the fact that ‘psychopath’ is more or less defined as evil. But what about a person who lacks any sort of emotional warmth or empathy? Couldn’t this person use his intellect to make the choice of doing the right thing? Couldn’t this person be taught – by himself or others – to mechanically follow a righteous path? Or is it true what Robin Williams says to Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting: that you can never substitute the mind for the heart? that you can know everything there is to know about a thing and still not grasp the feel of it?
Lizards.
Well, the author Warren Hammond is banking that you can accept the notion of a good psychopath. The protag, one Juno Mozambe, certainly fits the bill. He’s a dirty cop, an ex-enforcer, whose best trait is loyalty, backed up by a strong right hook. A good character for this sci-fi noir tale of murder and corruption. I’d call it LA Confidential with sci-fi trappings, but that’d be an insult to both LA Confidential and sci-fi trappings.
Lizards.
Which isn’t to say that it’s a bad book. It’s as solid as they come. But there’s no spark to it. Raymond Chandler, one of the founding fathers of noir, wrote, “In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption.” He continued, “But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.” And later concludes, “The story is the man’s adventure in search of a hidden truth…”
Lizards.
Unfortunately, none of this applies to KOP. Juno Mozambe is mean and tarnished and afraid. He searches for no hidden truth. There is no quality of redemption in this story. It becomes quite clear, once mysteries begin getting revealed, that this is the case. It is, in the end, a straight-forward story of two detectives doing the proper legwork and getting their perp.
Lizards.
A good noir is more that, isn’t it? A good noir is imbued with the qualities of Romance. I don’t mean kiss kiss romance, but Romance of the Tolkien, Shakespearean, Homeric sort. The world is a place of dark chaos and the detective moves through it like a mean ol’ lighthouse. He is a blood-stained knight fighting the good fight against Entropy. A good noir book acknowledges the grime, muck, and corruption of daily life, yet it seeks ever to rise above it. Good noir shows the reader the attitude necessary to live in a dirty world and still do good.
Lizards.
KOP has none of that. It tells you a whole lot of nothin’ about how to deal with the crap of the world. I never could put my finger on exactly what is wrong with KOP, why it felt so lifeless. But if I were forced to offer some diagnosis, it’d be something like: KOP is a genre boilerplate, through n through, and it’s rife with plot errors and poor focus.
Lizards.
For example, from the backcover: “The colony world Lagarto boomed when an indigenous plant was discovered to yield a uniquely intoxicating brandy… but when Earth synthesized a copy, Lagarto’s economy crashed.” Okay. Cool. Strange that that’s the first sentence but whatever. And then later on page 54: “Somebody had smuggled a pair of brandy tree saplings offplanet, and soon after all the settled planets began raising their own fruit.” Wait what? Did Earth synthesize a copy or was the sapling just transplanted? A minor detail, surely, and true it is. But it’s characteristic of an inelegance that spreads throughout the book. The protag’s shaky gunhand is mentioned over and over, to the point where I’m thinking okay this is gonna play a major part in a major standoff. Nope! Turns out no one gave a damn about it actually. Juno’s shaky hand caused him to miss ONE shot, but it didn’t matter.
Lizards.
OKAY. ENOUGH WITH THE F#(*ING LIZARDS. actually, damnit, I give up on this review. Here it is in TEN words:
Lizards. Lizards. Lizards. Lizards. Shaking fist. Lizards. Lizards. Offworlders. Lizards. Offworlders.
BAM. KOP EXPERIENCE.
Honestly, you wanna read some sci-fi noir? Read Altered Carbon. It’s better in every way. Except that it mentions lizards fewer times. So… still better in every way.
July 7, 2014
Sci-fi noir with a bent cop protagonist who is so short of redeemable features he just might kick cats? Sweet! I'd read that in a heartbeat.
Bent cop who wants to retire to the country thrown in to the middle of a gang war with a hot female rookie partner, on an alien planet seven hundred years in the future which nevertheless reads like a near future Earth slum and an author telling the story who likes to jabber on unnecessarily? Ugh! No thanks chap.
I picked up on the tells early on and it didn't go away, how about a madam taking two pages to explain that the murder victim was brought to see her for the first time when he was 15 because his dad wanted him to get some sexual experience? She doesn't even talk around the subject, the reader is just treated to this momentous scene as if the very concept was a brand new one that needed in depth explanation, otherwise known as morons.
How about this gem in response to seeing some "peaceniks" campaigning for justice for a murdered child, 'the dumb-shits didn't get it - where there was poverty, there was crime, and where there was crime there was organised crime. You can't stop the violence.'? Over-simplified, unnecessary exposition, I immediately thought of the noir of Pelecanos, the poverty on the streets of his Washington, if he'd just written that one statement he could have taken the past two decades off of writing excellent noir novel with a social conscience.
Bent cop who wants to retire to the country thrown in to the middle of a gang war with a hot female rookie partner, on an alien planet seven hundred years in the future which nevertheless reads like a near future Earth slum and an author telling the story who likes to jabber on unnecessarily? Ugh! No thanks chap.
I picked up on the tells early on and it didn't go away, how about a madam taking two pages to explain that the murder victim was brought to see her for the first time when he was 15 because his dad wanted him to get some sexual experience? She doesn't even talk around the subject, the reader is just treated to this momentous scene as if the very concept was a brand new one that needed in depth explanation, otherwise known as morons.
How about this gem in response to seeing some "peaceniks" campaigning for justice for a murdered child, 'the dumb-shits didn't get it - where there was poverty, there was crime, and where there was crime there was organised crime. You can't stop the violence.'? Over-simplified, unnecessary exposition, I immediately thought of the noir of Pelecanos, the poverty on the streets of his Washington, if he'd just written that one statement he could have taken the past two decades off of writing excellent noir novel with a social conscience.
August 8, 2009
Interesting world that was conceived for this book. I found the story to be good, plotting good and fast-paced with good diversions. Some of the subject matter probably will offend or bother a few readers, not me. I think that the premise of how a "corrupt" police force was actually created to bring order and peace to the civilian population to be a nice twist on things.
It reminds me of a lesser story in the original Star Trek series. Cute and fun to see the characters in it, but not anything that was "science fiction". Likewise, this story uses its world and technology as a backdrop. One that helps to separate the haves from the have nots, but it does not interfere with the development of the story.
It reminds me of a lesser story in the original Star Trek series. Cute and fun to see the characters in it, but not anything that was "science fiction". Likewise, this story uses its world and technology as a backdrop. One that helps to separate the haves from the have nots, but it does not interfere with the development of the story.
June 7, 2017
If hard-boiled sci-fi noir is your kinda thing. You won't be disappointed. I had a great time reading it. The protagonist isn't anyone I should like but I still do and that's not always an easy thing to do but almost a necessity to have a solid noir story, even more so for a series.
Read
December 6, 2023Another of my physical books that I read many years ago. Can't remember anything about it now other than the fact that my younger self liked it. I'll rate it when I re-read it.
January 27, 2013
Kop is a police come mafia thriller set on another world far, far away. Lagarto, with a once booming economy, changed almost overnight to a stricken slum planet after the secrets of its main export, a unique brandy was stolen, replicated and produced more cheaply elsewhere. Now the only way any serious money can be made is illegal drugs, prostitution and slave trading but for those who made the long trip from earth hoping for prosperity many years ago, all that's left is Tenttown, disease and despair.
Most of the story's action takes place in Lagarto's capital city of Koba.
The planet's entire police force, Kop, is corrupt starting at the top with Koba Police Chief Paul Chang, who along with close friend and the story's protagonist Juno climbed into bed with the city's crime lord Ram Bandur over twenty years ago.
Together they tore through the city, leaving a path of destruction as both criminals and kops were left with a simple choice work for us or go to jail. Paul arrested his way to the top with Juno as his temper stricken enforcer. Now they run the city but things are about to change, there is a new mayor with big plans and cleaning up kop is high on his agenda.
Juno's violent enforcing days are behind him, a dirty kop whose only duty now is collecting protection money as a vice kop, hiding a shaking right hand that threatens his career and living with his partner Niki who also hides a violent past.
Juno has a chequered history, the back story of how he and Paul rise from lowly detectives to running kop is fed to us gradually through the book and makes for interesting reading.
Whilst under heavy scrutinization by the Mayors anticorruption faction and his own chief of detectives Paul asks Juno to investigate the murder of an Army officer, partnering him with a rookie, a rich, clever and straight policewoman Maggie Orzo.
The Mayors office want the case dropping, something is not right, can Juno and his partner put the pieces together while the powers that be meticulously plan to wipe each other out once and for all.
Juno is an easily accessible character, an antihero that could have been the villain but his decisions make him believable in a compelling way, very likeable, his loyalty to Paul is unwavering right up to the end. The story is very well written, world building is excellent, you can just imagine the slum town floating on the flood plain as the jungle forever fights to claim the city and the offworlders with incredible technology, perfect in every way. There is enough twists and turns to maintain a frenetic pace throughout, no shortage of violence and character development is handled superbly.
I already have the second and third novels Ex-Kop and Kop Killer and will be reading soon after this thoroughly impressive debut.
Most of the story's action takes place in Lagarto's capital city of Koba.
The planet's entire police force, Kop, is corrupt starting at the top with Koba Police Chief Paul Chang, who along with close friend and the story's protagonist Juno climbed into bed with the city's crime lord Ram Bandur over twenty years ago.
Together they tore through the city, leaving a path of destruction as both criminals and kops were left with a simple choice work for us or go to jail. Paul arrested his way to the top with Juno as his temper stricken enforcer. Now they run the city but things are about to change, there is a new mayor with big plans and cleaning up kop is high on his agenda.
Juno's violent enforcing days are behind him, a dirty kop whose only duty now is collecting protection money as a vice kop, hiding a shaking right hand that threatens his career and living with his partner Niki who also hides a violent past.
Juno has a chequered history, the back story of how he and Paul rise from lowly detectives to running kop is fed to us gradually through the book and makes for interesting reading.
Whilst under heavy scrutinization by the Mayors anticorruption faction and his own chief of detectives Paul asks Juno to investigate the murder of an Army officer, partnering him with a rookie, a rich, clever and straight policewoman Maggie Orzo.
The Mayors office want the case dropping, something is not right, can Juno and his partner put the pieces together while the powers that be meticulously plan to wipe each other out once and for all.
Juno is an easily accessible character, an antihero that could have been the villain but his decisions make him believable in a compelling way, very likeable, his loyalty to Paul is unwavering right up to the end. The story is very well written, world building is excellent, you can just imagine the slum town floating on the flood plain as the jungle forever fights to claim the city and the offworlders with incredible technology, perfect in every way. There is enough twists and turns to maintain a frenetic pace throughout, no shortage of violence and character development is handled superbly.
I already have the second and third novels Ex-Kop and Kop Killer and will be reading soon after this thoroughly impressive debut.
February 20, 2012
I never really got into this book (I figure I read about a third), but we had a good discussion at book club. The main character is an antihero, which I rarely like, and it's in first person POV, making it worse for me to try to be in the characters head. The setting is depressing also, a run down backwater planet that nobody likes. The plot is a mystery, dead body and dirty politics. I complained that the women that I saw (except the rookie cop) were all side players, except maybe the one who ran the bordello (and there may have been an offworlder I didn't get to); Louise pointed out that the whole society seemed to be transplanted 1920s society, when women were fairly constrained. We also decided the whole story could be read as an allegory of the politics in a banana republic. As a group, out of three readers, one liked it, one didn't, and one thought it was just okay.
November 22, 2020
A pretty entertaining sci-fi crime story. The main problem is that it doesn't know what it wants to be. Is it a police procedural about cops hunting a serial killer? Is it a political thriller? Is it a character study complete with copious flashbacks? Is it about slave traders? Is it about a good rookie cop in a corrupt department?
It tries to be all of these things and so only partly succeeds at anything.
It tries to be all of these things and so only partly succeeds at anything.
August 30, 2022
Solid hard-boiled noir (or at least noir-ish) mystery.
March 11, 2014
Seldom have I enjoyed a novel so much as I enjoyed this one. It's a gritty, noir mystery wrapped up in a sci fi package and it doesn't disappoint. I feel drained from reading it and I don't think I can write anything worthy enough to do it justice, so I'll just highlight some things for those reading this review.
Juno Mozambe is a bad man. Yet he's a cop. A dirty cop. Very dirty. Former enforcer for the Chief of Koba’s Office of Police (aka KOP) on Lagarto, a world that once exported a type of wine that got taken off world and was produced elsewhere for cheaper, thus leaving Lagarto a giant slum, for all intents and purposes. When we meet Juno, he's working as a bag man for the boss, taking bribes, hiding a shaking hand and thinking of retirement. He's been on the force for 25 years. Things seem grim.
Things get much more grim when a brutal murder occurs with potential political ramifications, in which he's pulled in to act as investigating officer, with a new partner -- a younger, attractive, rich woman who plays by the book. What follows is a brilliant novel of hard boiled twists and turns, mysterious characters and motives, a lot of violence, some of which can be hard to stomach, and it's a page turner til you get to the end. The characters are well written, and feel real and believable the entire way through the book. There's not a lot of technology here, though, so I guess the setting on a distant world makes this sci fi -- the plot could take place anywhere, any time -- but when you finally realize toward the end of the book what's actually going on, you could care less -- you've been sucked in.
Everyone in this book is dirty. Juno is a kind of anti-hero, but one you can identify with. His new partner starts playing by his rules soon enough, and you sympathize with her as she struggles with what she wants to do versus what she must do to solve this case. Juno reverts to his enforcer role, beating confessions out of thugs and criminals, but does this make him just as bad? That's never really answered, even though the book throws that out there.
Juno, and the boss he's so devoted to, his former partner Paul Chang, took over KOP 25 years ago by making a deal with the largest crime syndicate, effectively splitting up the city between them. The new mayor wants to clean house, but he's as big a crook as everyone else.
I kept waiting for the pacing to slow down, as many books have slow middle sections, but this one never did. It kept pushing the envelope. Furious pace. I strongly, strongly recommend this book to all sci fi and mystery fans. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
Juno Mozambe is a bad man. Yet he's a cop. A dirty cop. Very dirty. Former enforcer for the Chief of Koba’s Office of Police (aka KOP) on Lagarto, a world that once exported a type of wine that got taken off world and was produced elsewhere for cheaper, thus leaving Lagarto a giant slum, for all intents and purposes. When we meet Juno, he's working as a bag man for the boss, taking bribes, hiding a shaking hand and thinking of retirement. He's been on the force for 25 years. Things seem grim.
Things get much more grim when a brutal murder occurs with potential political ramifications, in which he's pulled in to act as investigating officer, with a new partner -- a younger, attractive, rich woman who plays by the book. What follows is a brilliant novel of hard boiled twists and turns, mysterious characters and motives, a lot of violence, some of which can be hard to stomach, and it's a page turner til you get to the end. The characters are well written, and feel real and believable the entire way through the book. There's not a lot of technology here, though, so I guess the setting on a distant world makes this sci fi -- the plot could take place anywhere, any time -- but when you finally realize toward the end of the book what's actually going on, you could care less -- you've been sucked in.
Everyone in this book is dirty. Juno is a kind of anti-hero, but one you can identify with. His new partner starts playing by his rules soon enough, and you sympathize with her as she struggles with what she wants to do versus what she must do to solve this case. Juno reverts to his enforcer role, beating confessions out of thugs and criminals, but does this make him just as bad? That's never really answered, even though the book throws that out there.
Juno, and the boss he's so devoted to, his former partner Paul Chang, took over KOP 25 years ago by making a deal with the largest crime syndicate, effectively splitting up the city between them. The new mayor wants to clean house, but he's as big a crook as everyone else.
I kept waiting for the pacing to slow down, as many books have slow middle sections, but this one never did. It kept pushing the envelope. Furious pace. I strongly, strongly recommend this book to all sci fi and mystery fans. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
August 16, 2014
Start “Kop” and you will feel right at home in a dark story of dirty justice, mean streets, creepy thugs and embedded corruption. These streets just happen to be on a planet named Lagarto where the reptiles, both the human and animal variety, tend to get their way. My reading list skews to earthbound mysteries so my credentials at reviewing sci-fi (mash up or straight up) are dubious. But Warren Hammond built a mucky murky world up there on the Lagarto and then imagined a rip-roaring plot with the gravitational pull of Jupiter.
Our tour guide is Juno Mozambe and he is part of the force trying to keep order in the sagging civilization, where laws and justice are uncertain commodities. Except Juno Mozambe is no Boy Scout. He’s an enforcer. He’s got a role in one effort to return Lagarto to its glory days and, as such, he’s not opposed to collaborating with a murderous crime lord. Or two. He has found a way to ignore the “flames of hell” licking at his feet. In short, he’s utterly human.
Lagarto was once a thriving little planet. But its status declined when brandy tree saplings were smuggled “offplanet.” Lagarto is now overgrown, quite literally, as a jungle. In the squalid mess that’s left, cartels and crime bosses have moved in. The rivers are sewers. Geckos scurry everywhere. Large lizards abound. You feel sticky and hot just turning the pages. “Kop” might include a pinch of “Apocalypse Now” and a dash of “Chinatown,” but Lagarto is its own blender of Hammond’s nicely warped reality.
Like any good mystery, “Kop” starts with a murder—a throat-slashing attack in a back alley. Juno picks up the blood trail. He also picks up, over his objections, a young and inexperienced female partner. In bits and pieces, we are shown the Lagarto lifestyle. We are given a nifty flashback about Juno’s wife. (As characters, both the rookie female cop Maggie and Juno’s wife Niki neatly toy with standard clichés.)
Juno knows someone is always looking for an angle. In the case of “Kop,” the back-alley murder leads to unravelling a big-picture, planet-sized plot. It’s a doozie. And it works.
“Kop” offers a cool mash-up of heavy noir and calm, clear-eyed sci-fi. “Kop” put Lagarto out there in the universe. And you know what? I’ll be back.
Our tour guide is Juno Mozambe and he is part of the force trying to keep order in the sagging civilization, where laws and justice are uncertain commodities. Except Juno Mozambe is no Boy Scout. He’s an enforcer. He’s got a role in one effort to return Lagarto to its glory days and, as such, he’s not opposed to collaborating with a murderous crime lord. Or two. He has found a way to ignore the “flames of hell” licking at his feet. In short, he’s utterly human.
Lagarto was once a thriving little planet. But its status declined when brandy tree saplings were smuggled “offplanet.” Lagarto is now overgrown, quite literally, as a jungle. In the squalid mess that’s left, cartels and crime bosses have moved in. The rivers are sewers. Geckos scurry everywhere. Large lizards abound. You feel sticky and hot just turning the pages. “Kop” might include a pinch of “Apocalypse Now” and a dash of “Chinatown,” but Lagarto is its own blender of Hammond’s nicely warped reality.
Like any good mystery, “Kop” starts with a murder—a throat-slashing attack in a back alley. Juno picks up the blood trail. He also picks up, over his objections, a young and inexperienced female partner. In bits and pieces, we are shown the Lagarto lifestyle. We are given a nifty flashback about Juno’s wife. (As characters, both the rookie female cop Maggie and Juno’s wife Niki neatly toy with standard clichés.)
Juno knows someone is always looking for an angle. In the case of “Kop,” the back-alley murder leads to unravelling a big-picture, planet-sized plot. It’s a doozie. And it works.
“Kop” offers a cool mash-up of heavy noir and calm, clear-eyed sci-fi. “Kop” put Lagarto out there in the universe. And you know what? I’ll be back.
January 9, 2009
This book was fantastic. I love a good crime novel and with the sci-fi mixed in it was just awesome. I loved the characters. They were well developed and Juno was a very real hero in this tale. He had flaws and didn't come off like Bruce Willis in the Die Hard movies. He got hurt,he had limits,and he felt real. I can't wait to read Warren Hammond's next book- EX-KOP. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes crime novels and don't worry about the sci-fi in it, it really doesn't hold back or drown the story. The planet they live on is a dirty place that has many stories to tell and Hammond needs to continue to tell them.
September 25, 2009
The language is very rough. The violence is very graphic. It's not for the squeamish. It combines hard boiled detective and science fiction. Superb plot lines. Outstanding descriptions of people and locations. Fast paced.
The protagonist is all too human - nasty, old, weak, a drunk - but you're rooting for him all the way.
The protagonist is all too human - nasty, old, weak, a drunk - but you're rooting for him all the way.
January 9, 2015
A corrupt vice cop on a poor planet is asked by his ex-partner chief of police to investigate a murder, and to partner with an entitled rookie with strong ethics. The world is well described, the characters vivid and believable, the tragedies sad.
June 8, 2016
A debut novel by local Denver author Warren Hammond, KOP is a science fiction thriller. Set in the distant future, on a distant planet, the story follows Juno Mozambe, an aging crooked cop that works for the privatized police force KOP on his home planet Largato.
The novel is a perfect example of formulaic genre fiction. Juno is a washed out morally debunked cop that is both tired of his underhanded ways and entirely unwilling and unable to change them. He is partnered up with a female rookie fresh out of the academy who gradually starts to accept his unlawful ways of roughing up perps and kicking in doors because they are effective. Juno, being an old tough as nails kinda guy, is quick to have a torch burning for his new partner Maggie but she seems intent on turning him into some sort of gruff father figure.
Read the rest of my review on my blog
The novel is a perfect example of formulaic genre fiction. Juno is a washed out morally debunked cop that is both tired of his underhanded ways and entirely unwilling and unable to change them. He is partnered up with a female rookie fresh out of the academy who gradually starts to accept his unlawful ways of roughing up perps and kicking in doors because they are effective. Juno, being an old tough as nails kinda guy, is quick to have a torch burning for his new partner Maggie but she seems intent on turning him into some sort of gruff father figure.
Read the rest of my review on my blog
December 15, 2017
This was actually fairly good. I like the anti-hero thing that Juno had going on. Not everything was black and white with him or his world. Sometiems you have to do bad things in order to get at least some good results. This novel showed how you're better off picking the lesser of two evils and all. Not everything was plainly written as being good or being bad everything was coded with shades of grey. Meggie was the complete opposite of Juno which showed how flawed his personality was and how his life has hardened his personality. By even Maggie was inflicted by Juno as they went about trying to solve the case. It's a very interesting world warren has created and very intriguing characters to boot.
April 8, 2009
This is a good gritty noir novel in a science fiction setting. The technology is incidental, and the backwater planet could be any steamy little third-world nation. That said, it is enjoyable for what it is. the hero is a former enforcer for the police, hopelessly mired in the endemic corruption of a poor city-state on a poor planet. He is roped into an investigation that may be beyond his tired old self, saddled with a spit-shiny by-the-book new partner, encounters what seems like random mayhem, and figures it all out in time to find a drastic solution. Quiote fun.
July 26, 2009
Kop was an engaging and science-fiction mystery. I liked how the protagonist was flawed and complicated, because it prevented the story from being stereotypical or tedious. The author descriptively created a dark, despairing world populated with acts of bribery, violence, and poverty. This story was not extremely depressing, however, because the main character, who did many things he later regretted, did have a streak of goodness in him. A well written mystery in a well-developed futuristic setting.
August 13, 2015
Okay, I didn't actually read this one all the way through. I skimmed it after the first few chapters because I was desperate to find it out if it would get any more interesting or less melodramatic. I really like sci-fi! I really like mysteries! I was looking forward to a novel that apparently combined both, but this read more like a movie script than a book. I'm not saying I wouldn't try something else by this author, but this one just didn't click with me.
December 3, 2008
I recently read another first novel (I really love reading first novels of authors) which hinted at noir, but didn't quite pull it all together. I was disappointed. Kop, however, didn't disappoint, but left me eager to read the next in the series. The characters were flawed enough to be real, hopeful enough to keep the reader rooting for their ultimate success. The plot was well thought out, with enough character development to keep me interested beyond the eventual revelation of "who dun it."
My husband's BC review of this book is quite nice so I include it here:
Kop is an intriguing book in many ways-- part noir, part futuristic techno-thriller, if I'm remembering the liner notes accurately. The story is set in several centuries in the future on a planet populated by families from Earth seeking a better life, who had traveled there a few generations before. Everything on this world is dirty-- the environment, the police, the politicians, everything you would expect in a place where the government sells out to the highest bidders.
The main character is a hotheaded, dirty cop who has maybe been in the game too long. He's actually a decent guy who took the only path he could have if he wanted to remain a cop. His former partner, now head of the force, assigns him to an important homicide case that turns out to be more important than anyone imagined. His new partner is a capable and beautiful rookie cop who comes from a wealthy plantation family. The wealthy on this planet use cosmetic surgery freely, so her perfect looks are not built entirely on the truth. Likewise, she finds that she must also make compromises of integrity if she is to attain a greater good, the same types of compromises made by her older partner when he was a rookie.
This book shows the underbelly of all that is nasty in society, and every page of it is enjoyable. A fabulous first novel by an author I intend to continue reading when his sequel arrives this fall.
My husband's BC review of this book is quite nice so I include it here:
Kop is an intriguing book in many ways-- part noir, part futuristic techno-thriller, if I'm remembering the liner notes accurately. The story is set in several centuries in the future on a planet populated by families from Earth seeking a better life, who had traveled there a few generations before. Everything on this world is dirty-- the environment, the police, the politicians, everything you would expect in a place where the government sells out to the highest bidders.
The main character is a hotheaded, dirty cop who has maybe been in the game too long. He's actually a decent guy who took the only path he could have if he wanted to remain a cop. His former partner, now head of the force, assigns him to an important homicide case that turns out to be more important than anyone imagined. His new partner is a capable and beautiful rookie cop who comes from a wealthy plantation family. The wealthy on this planet use cosmetic surgery freely, so her perfect looks are not built entirely on the truth. Likewise, she finds that she must also make compromises of integrity if she is to attain a greater good, the same types of compromises made by her older partner when he was a rookie.
This book shows the underbelly of all that is nasty in society, and every page of it is enjoyable. A fabulous first novel by an author I intend to continue reading when his sequel arrives this fall.
January 19, 2018
3 1/2 stars - This was a fun read with a '30s style noir feel, which the author captures well. The story takes place on a faraway planet which is dirt poor and marginally habitable - the descriptions of the climate and accompanying insect life are really immersive and had me suffering along with the denizens of the planet. But the planet isn't as developed as I'd have liked, and might just as well have been a poor, steamy, squalid cesspit of an area on Earth. The protagonist is likable despite being 'dirty' - in a world where everyone is dirty he's a pretty nice guy. His partner is also likable, and grows out of her naivete as the story progresses. I'll be interested to see where he goes in the followup book.
February 25, 2016
I read this book as a spec for a film script, and I definitely see the cinematic appeal here, especially for people interested in sci-fi or cop procedural television. I wish there had been more character development though. There's potential for such a raw and interesting relationship between the leads, but instead most of the novel is devoted to iguanas with laser claws and metal teeth and the crime side of the city of Koba. I needed something to balance out the action.
September 2, 2017
I really enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I would. Whilst the story is a fairly standard detective story, albeit with a SciFi setting, it was the world that that the characters live on that grabbed me. I could feel the constant sweat that they have to live with, the humidity that is unavoidable.
I was able to clearly imagine each location that the action takes place in, and for that's a good book. I plan on reading the rest of the series.
I was able to clearly imagine each location that the action takes place in, and for that's a good book. I plan on reading the rest of the series.
May 3, 2018
Excellent book, although I didn't like Juno, (don't think you're supposed to) but the ending was brilliant.
December 19, 2022
This combined two of my favorite genres, cyberpunk & hardboiled, and it did it pretty well. I liked the aging detective with a few tricks up his sleeve, and it was refreshing that he did not have a substance abuse problem for once. Call me a prude but I appreciated that it did not have awkwardly explicit sex scenes as all modern novels seems to force into the story. The climax was a bit abrupt and there was no resolution - but it was suggested what would happen, and creates an easy intro to next book in the series. Since this book wasn't very long I will probably follow up with #2 within a few months.
April 7, 2022
2-2.5 stars. It was ok noir, though the writing featured moments of poor choices. My biggest problem was it wasn’t sci-fi enough (I wanted a sci-fi noir at the time) and nothing about it necessitated a sci-fi backdrop. It was set 700 years in the future and though it was set on another planet, not much else had changed. Set this in 2030 San Francisco, or hell, 1948 San Francisco, and it might be a better story.
April 1, 2024
I picked this one up quite some time ago from the author's table at a random convention. Finally got around to reading it, and I shouldn't have waited so long! I liked the dirty cop aspect of the story, something I haven't read too much of. I feel like there should have been more of the science fiction aspect of the story, to balance out the cop stuff. There was a good amount of action, and a good amount of character development of the main couple people we see through the story. Solid read!
June 28, 2024
A great cyberpunk noir set on a colony planet that’s no longer rich in valuable resources. It’s action-packed and fast-paced. Some interesting tech too, but that's not the story’s focus. Read all the way until the end for the startling conclusion.
Read if you liked Titanium Noir.
Read if you liked Altered Carbon.
Read if you liked Titanium Noir.
Read if you liked Altered Carbon.
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