In a bleak future where the city of New Orleans has been wiped out by superstorm, the city of Floattown and New Lyons have been built over and adjacent to the sunken city. It is a future where ‘synthetics’, humans created in labs, are used for many different purposes, including as sex toys.

We open with Detective Campbell at a murder scene, where a young woman has been eviscerated, and left in the street like trash. And to her killer, and those called to process the site alike, she is nothing more than. Why? Because she is a synthetic, considered property, not human. To consider the synths as anything other than property would call into question all the heinous uses they are put to. But to Campbell, labelled a synth-sympathiser, this woman deserves justice. What he search turns up is far beyond what he could have imagined, a truth to shake the very foundation of society.

SINthetic is a brilliant gritty noir detective story illuminating what it truly means to be ‘human’, to have sentience and self-sovereignty. Likewise, it shines a light into the darkest depths of what it means to be inhuman, to be monstrous, and without soul, for what else can you call it when a people create life, only to abuse and debase it?

I loved the writing, but it did leave me feeling skeezy and nauseous, because of how the synths were treated. They are property and so it’s perfectly acceptable to torture, rape, and kill them. Violent crime is considered almost nonexistent, not because the violence doesn’t happen, but because it only happens to non-people. It happens to property. These topics arise, but Nicholas doesn’t go into extreme graphic detail, thankfully.

I suppose reactions come from being an empath, and overly compassionate person. I just cannot fathom how people can consider other people as property, and that’s made worse because these people made the synths in a lab, and somehow thought that made them less than human when it’s clear they have spirit and soul.

This reminded me of the Star Trek: Next Gen episode ‘The Measure of a Man’, where Lt Commander Data’s sentience and self-sovereignty is questioned, and put on trial when a Starfleet cyberneticist wants to shut him down and disassemble him to learn how he was created. No, son. Don’t be an asshole.

There were undertones of Masterpiece Theatre’s The Last Enemy, with how the cameras once used for traffic and other cc cameras are used to monitor the population. Camera clusters cover almost the entirety of the city, so there’s very little privacy. I’m definitely looking forward to the continuation of this series! Highly recommended if you like fantasy/sci-fi oriented crime thrillers with a deep emotional punch.

***Many thanks to Silver Dagger Blog Tours and the author for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.