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City of Sensors
In a city where everything is recorded by data--from the coffee you drink to your most intimate secrets--Data Detective Frank Southwood, down on his luck and saddled with a gambling addiction, faces jail time if he can't pay his debts. Working for an elite body of detectives who use big data for police work, Frank gets the case that might make his career when he begins investigating a high-profile money laundering ring. Meanwhile, he meets and falls for Jenny, a political activist with ties to the criminal underworld. Desperate to pay his debts, Frank makes a dirty bribery deal with Jenny's fellow criminals, but soon his investigation leads him back to the criminals he himself works for. Forced to choose between putting Jenny in jail or else an innocent man in her place, Frank pushes the limits of morality in a world in which justice can seem preordained. Thoughtful and eerily prophetic, City of Sensors shines a light on a digital future rapidly becoming our reality.
242 pages, Paperback
Published April 15, 2022
19 people want to read
About the author
A.M. Todd
7 books13 followersDebut novel, CITY OF SENSORS, available now!
A.M. Todd is a Canadian author who currently lives in Toronto. Her first novel, CITY OF SENSORS, combines noir and science fiction in a near-future detective story (published by NON Publishing). Her writing has been awarded grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Toronto Arts Council, as well as honorable mention in the Writers of the Future Contest. She completed her Ph.D. in English literature at the University of Toronto. Her short fiction has appeared in Breath and Shadow, Kaleidoscope, Scare Street, and After Dinner Conversation.
A.M. Todd is a Canadian author who currently lives in Toronto. Her first novel, CITY OF SENSORS, combines noir and science fiction in a near-future detective story (published by NON Publishing). Her writing has been awarded grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Toronto Arts Council, as well as honorable mention in the Writers of the Future Contest. She completed her Ph.D. in English literature at the University of Toronto. Her short fiction has appeared in Breath and Shadow, Kaleidoscope, Scare Street, and After Dinner Conversation.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 28, 2022
In an age of increased data surveillance, A.M. Todd’s City of Sensors delivers a new classic of hard-boiled detective fiction. Todd’s dystopian cashless society is an eerie reflection of our own world, where the data police hunt down the elusive privacy fanatics and the transparency of technology obscures corruption at the highest level. As a result, the plot is prophetic, gripping, and delivers twists until the last page. The protagonist, Frank Southwood, an obsessive-compulsive vegan detective who slowly uncovers his own capacity for sin, is both a fresh departure from and faithful riff off of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe. Todd’s writing offers a tactile overload: readers can taste the pollution in the air and feel the glow of computer screens. With propulsive plotting, prescient world-building, and gritty writing, City of Sensors is a book for our time.
June 23, 2022
Absolutely fantastic. It really does a good job of showing how society becoming so detached leads to so many issues as well as getting into Frank's mind as a product of that society. It's a book I not only enjoyed reading, but can be analyzed and discussed on many levels.
December 11, 2022
A wonderfully believable vision of the future, this cashless, advertising-plagued world is fully imagined and fleshed out. There are no real heroes here, but you can relate to and empathize with the protagonist even if you can't always like him. Every decision is nuanced and self-justified and it makes you ask yourself if you'd do any differently. Highly recommended and very much enjoyed.
June 23, 2022
My review in Ottawa Review of Books:
If you are at all into film noir or hard-boiled detectives, then City of Sensors may be for you. The setting may be near-future speculative fiction, but the tone is entirely that of classic B-Movie angst.
The story follows Detective Frank Southwood, a data cop whose partner has been murdered while investigating a money-laundering scheme. Frank is assigned his dead partner’s caseload but ordered to stay away from the investigation into her murder. Frank, having no faith in the abilities of the homicide squad and knowing in his gut that both cases must be linked, pursues both with a relentless disregard for protocol.
If that sounds like a movie that might have starred Humphrey Bogart you are not wrong, but our protagonist’s self-rationalizing narration reminded me most strongly of Detour, where each bad decision leads to . . . even worse decisions. By chapter 5, the stress has made Frank’s OCD worse, his loneliness collides with various femme fatales, and his gambling addiction and compulsive spending have left him broke and vulnerable at the very moment he intends to take on some of the city’s most powerful figures. Bottom line: Frank is an unreliable narrator and kind of an ass, but you can’t look away from this story of the rogue cop going undercover.
Frank moves through settings that alternate between glitzy casinos and seedy diners—a gritty, dark world that oozes corruption and menace. These are the contrasting neighbourhoods of the super-rich and the criminal-poor that exist in any large urban center, but which we know only second-hand because neither are neighbourhoods in which we would feel safe.
The speculative world-building focuses on the implications of cyber currency and data mining trends extrapolated to their logical conclusions. None of it is heavy-handed or didactic; instead, competing views and possibilities are woven through the story action.
Like the best film noir, there are little tidbits of memorable dialogue, action and description that elevate the book above mere storytelling. This is an oddly insightful novel about flawed people making their way as best they can through crappy alternatives in a fundamentally distorted society. Yes, the author presents a critique of the surveillance society and too-late-stage capitalism—an updated take on 1984—but with a better understanding, perhaps, of individual psychology. Where Orwell understood how the average citizen is manipulated and controlled, Todd understands the reality that there are always going to be at least some individuals so screwed up that they inevitably spin out of one’s control.
This is Todd’s first novel, hot off the press, and the best novel I’ve read so far this year.
The City of Sensors is published by Now or Never Publishing
If you are at all into film noir or hard-boiled detectives, then City of Sensors may be for you. The setting may be near-future speculative fiction, but the tone is entirely that of classic B-Movie angst.
The story follows Detective Frank Southwood, a data cop whose partner has been murdered while investigating a money-laundering scheme. Frank is assigned his dead partner’s caseload but ordered to stay away from the investigation into her murder. Frank, having no faith in the abilities of the homicide squad and knowing in his gut that both cases must be linked, pursues both with a relentless disregard for protocol.
If that sounds like a movie that might have starred Humphrey Bogart you are not wrong, but our protagonist’s self-rationalizing narration reminded me most strongly of Detour, where each bad decision leads to . . . even worse decisions. By chapter 5, the stress has made Frank’s OCD worse, his loneliness collides with various femme fatales, and his gambling addiction and compulsive spending have left him broke and vulnerable at the very moment he intends to take on some of the city’s most powerful figures. Bottom line: Frank is an unreliable narrator and kind of an ass, but you can’t look away from this story of the rogue cop going undercover.
Frank moves through settings that alternate between glitzy casinos and seedy diners—a gritty, dark world that oozes corruption and menace. These are the contrasting neighbourhoods of the super-rich and the criminal-poor that exist in any large urban center, but which we know only second-hand because neither are neighbourhoods in which we would feel safe.
The speculative world-building focuses on the implications of cyber currency and data mining trends extrapolated to their logical conclusions. None of it is heavy-handed or didactic; instead, competing views and possibilities are woven through the story action.
Like the best film noir, there are little tidbits of memorable dialogue, action and description that elevate the book above mere storytelling. This is an oddly insightful novel about flawed people making their way as best they can through crappy alternatives in a fundamentally distorted society. Yes, the author presents a critique of the surveillance society and too-late-stage capitalism—an updated take on 1984—but with a better understanding, perhaps, of individual psychology. Where Orwell understood how the average citizen is manipulated and controlled, Todd understands the reality that there are always going to be at least some individuals so screwed up that they inevitably spin out of one’s control.
This is Todd’s first novel, hot off the press, and the best novel I’ve read so far this year.
The City of Sensors is published by Now or Never Publishing
January 1, 2023
Awesome book! This book is full of sumptuous dark imagery, a beautiful noir tale. Like Bladerunner and the Matrix. I loved following Frank's descent into the web of treachery surrounding his colleague's murder.
September 27, 2023
Great book! Loved how neurotic Frank was.
June 13, 2022
This is a fun book! The world is very believable as a near-future (already here?) possibility-- the prevalence of private policing, the data-driven decisions in every aspect of public life, the intense use of predictive analytics. I like a morally grey tale and this one gives you lots to chew on.
February 7, 2022
A wonderful mix of old-school detective fiction with forward-looking dystopian sci-fi. The world built by the author, the so-called city of censors, succeeds in being a natural extrapolation of real-world issues facing contemporary society. It is not just dystopian for the sake of being bad, it is a warning of where current trends can lead us if we don't work to shift the paradigm. The main character is fleshed out and consistent (while still going through an arc), and a good representation of neurodiversity, which is rare for detective fiction. The story packs surprises at every turn, capped off by a great final line.
June 30, 2022
At the half-way point of City of Sensors the reader is brought into the basement of Randy Spillaine’s seedy strip club. The name (with the added i) may be nothing, or it just might be A.M. Todd’s wink-wink-nudge-nudge that, yes, this is pure noir storytelling. Noir sci-fi, to be accurate: Mickey Spillane meets the Blade Runner.
The story’s case-hardened detective, Frank Southwood, is a data cop tasked with putting the white-collar no-goods behind bars - while trying to solve the murder of a fellow data cop, while trying to deal with his own addictions, while trying to rescue his own humanity.
Todd transports us to a future that we know only by prophecy. A tomorrow that is not hard to believe, a tomorrow we see coming. Where everything is automated, regulated, and data driven, and surveilled. And perhaps a little dark. Like Frank Southward, we think things are okay…but are they?
Make no mistake: this is no dime novel. Todd is a superb writer. She skillfully spins an old fashioned tale of the future, full of complicated and quixotic characters - and we are drawn into them, scars and all. But this is a novel that is elevated by not-so-subtle satire, most obviously on the political state of America (and, to be fair, perhaps everywhere): the warring ideas on freedom and privacy and gun rules and the collective good. Take Frank Southward’s thoughts as he watches the dissenters, the anarchists:
'And every face I met held a sense of purpose, a quasi-religious conviction that change would eventually shake the city, that privacy, anonymity, and what they saw as freedom would return. They talked a lot about moving forwards, about bringing changes, but it seemed to me they wanted to go backwards in time, back to medieval blood feuds, mob justice, and rigid hierarchy.'
The City of Sensors as America itself. But of course good writing doesn’t judge, it merely kicks the shins, stirs the conversation.
While City of Sensors sometimes kicks the shins, it is most sharply, an interesting story, a page turner. One that you keep thinking about a few days after it’s done. At least it was that for me.
The story’s case-hardened detective, Frank Southwood, is a data cop tasked with putting the white-collar no-goods behind bars - while trying to solve the murder of a fellow data cop, while trying to deal with his own addictions, while trying to rescue his own humanity.
Todd transports us to a future that we know only by prophecy. A tomorrow that is not hard to believe, a tomorrow we see coming. Where everything is automated, regulated, and data driven, and surveilled. And perhaps a little dark. Like Frank Southward, we think things are okay…but are they?
Make no mistake: this is no dime novel. Todd is a superb writer. She skillfully spins an old fashioned tale of the future, full of complicated and quixotic characters - and we are drawn into them, scars and all. But this is a novel that is elevated by not-so-subtle satire, most obviously on the political state of America (and, to be fair, perhaps everywhere): the warring ideas on freedom and privacy and gun rules and the collective good. Take Frank Southward’s thoughts as he watches the dissenters, the anarchists:
'And every face I met held a sense of purpose, a quasi-religious conviction that change would eventually shake the city, that privacy, anonymity, and what they saw as freedom would return. They talked a lot about moving forwards, about bringing changes, but it seemed to me they wanted to go backwards in time, back to medieval blood feuds, mob justice, and rigid hierarchy.'
The City of Sensors as America itself. But of course good writing doesn’t judge, it merely kicks the shins, stirs the conversation.
While City of Sensors sometimes kicks the shins, it is most sharply, an interesting story, a page turner. One that you keep thinking about a few days after it’s done. At least it was that for me.
December 22, 2024
A reflection of our own big brother dystopia. A big neurotic inducing to read.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews