Finished
Dangerous Dames, an omnibus of
The Plutonium Blonde and
The Doomsday Brunette in
John Zakour and
Lawrence Ganem's retro-futuristic comedic sf action sleuth series starring Zach Johnson, Earth's last licensed PI, who often takes on the functions of impromtu bodyguard as well as official detective in the course of his day job.
I'd previously read
another omnibus further along in the series, and liked it enough to go and buy this one, which was at a pretty good price for 2 books, even before the Kobo coupon discount.
Fun as before, and I don't feel I missed out by reading the series out of order. They do seem to be arranged in sets of 2 books, with the even-numbered ones kind of picking up (or just spoilering developments) from where the odd-numbered ones left off. But aside from the recurring supporting characters, the plots are pretty much standalone within each "duet".
Plenty of nifty looks at the faux-futuristic society which is suspiciously like an exaggerated present-day society (only with more tech and even sillier pop culture) and decent whodunnits with reasonable twists and turns. I confess I rather like cases where it turned out that the deceased had a long-ish list of eligible suspects who almost
all tried to dunnit, but only one of them actually managed to succeed, leaving the rest to shake their fists in thwarted revenge-rage.
Recommended if you like light-hearted sfnal whatdunnits in a retro-futuristic comedic action-adventure PI setting, with the kind of culprits that only technology/motivations gone horribly, terribly, and hilariously spoofy of stock genre clichés can provide. Only a few minor typos (a couple of wrong word typos and misplaced curly quotes).
Now currently on the library's paper copy of
The Sapphire Sirens, 6th book in the series, which for no particular reason I can determine, spoilers the 5th book in the series which I haven't read in its opening chapters. Well, maybe it actually has bearing on the plot solution later. In the meanwhile, fun as usual.