Alan's Reviews > Titanium Noir

Rec. by: Previous work, Jamie, and a multilayered title
Rec. for: Ungracious offspring

A book unread is a book unspoiled.

Once I finally had a copy of Titanium Noir in my hands, I found myself strangely reluctant to open it. After all, I've enjoyed every previous Nick Harkaway book so very much... would this one measure up?

I needn't have worried.

Both parts of the title are meaningful. Cal Sounder is a detective, a cynical loner possessing all of the typical noir signifiers. Cal regularly consults with (but is not employed by) the police in the lakeside metropolis of Othrys. It took me awhile to figure out Othrys' uncertain geography, by the way—early references to "flyover country" made it seem like a North American city, but Othrys is a Greek name, which is in fact an important clue.

Cal's speciality, and the reason why the cops in Othrys call him in even if they don't always like him very much, is working on cases involving Titans—a new kind of humanity, rejuvenated and vigorous and very long-lived, but also literally bigger than life.

We don't even get to see the word "Titan" for several pages, but their outsized influence looms over Othrys' wealthy Chersenesos district (and beyond) from the very beginning of Titanium Noir.

Cal Sounder himself is, as one Titan observes,

"A nobody, and yet somehow also a pin around which the city turns. Of course you're only a small businessman, but you are, undeniably, something of a figure in all of this, and I cannot for the life of me see how it comes to be so. You walk with giants. Are you on a mission?{...}"
—p.118

Titanium Noir is a lot more noir than titanium, at least to start with. That balance tilts later on, but the book remains a mystery, a detective story, a procedural, much more than an allegory or modern myth (however much it is those things too).

That leads to observations like this one:

Cop life is complicated. Three quarters of the problems they get asked to solve they can't, and shouldn't have to, and don't know how. The rest are just fucking terrifying. That makes them hang together, and that causes trouble because they can't belong to one another more than they belong to ordinary people—but they inevitably do. Add in all the ordinary human vices and cops can be a mile away and to the side of the population they're supposed to protect. Bad things will happen. I work near cops, around cops, between cops, but I'm not one of them and that makes a difference.
—p.87

Cal, or Harkaway, also ably anticipates the likely impact of such unevenly-distributed rejuvenations:

She hates old movies and TV shows. A lot of people do, without knowing why. It doesn't occur to them to notice that we're locked to the patterns of life in the moment T7 was developed, as if there can't be new new things because the old ones aren't going away.
—pp.93-94

And, of course, like all the best noir, Titanium Noir has plenty of world-weary wisdom to impart about the general human condition, insights that ring true and are applicable to today's headlines, whenever "today" might be:

It's worth remembering that angry and ridiculous people can do bad and effective things just like anyone else.
—p.139

Once I could bring myself to open up its mysteries, I read this book in a single day. Titanium Noir is just that tight... and I can honestly say that yes, Mr. Harkaway has done it again.