End Man is a tech-noir thriller set in the near-future. Raphael Lennon is an End Man, someone who works for the NDMN: “Norval Department of Marketing Necrology.” These IT workers have the jolly pleasure of gathering every bit of digital data left by the recently deceased and packaging it into a marketable product. As Raphael tries to track down an elusive “possum” (someone who faked their own death) he discovers a plot that could alter the course of life, and death, as we know it. To top it all off, Raphael suffers from dromophobia, a fear of crossing streets. This leaves him trapped in a tight square mile of dystopian Los Angeles.

I really enjoyed End Man. Raphael’s day-to-day work, with its “mindfulness videos,” horrible bosses, and questionable morality, feels all too real. Future L.A. is different, but grounded, being based on the real-life area surrounding the La Brea Tar Pits. Raphael is plagued by hallucinations of deadly winds to the south, fires to the north, a glacier to the east, and chasm to the west. This gives the story a claustrophobic feel as the walls close in on the him as he delves deeper into the mystery of the possum Jason Klaes, ominous warnings, and strange murders.

While I really enjoyed this absorbing technothriller I felt that the story took a little while to get going. The mystery-thriller aspect is the meat of the story, but I felt that the book gets bogged down a bit in the beginning with the inner workings of Norval. A few characters are introduced with a handful of sentences and disappear with little consequence, while the inner workings of Raphael’s mind and his self-imposed artistic therapy are prevalent. Raphael’s character is one that I enjoyed following otherwise. The plot and his character make for a unique read that was wildly entertaining and fun.

End Man is an exciting cyberpunk novel that creates a fully realized and compelling world for a fascinating protagonist to exist in. It’s a really interesting read that is incredibly relevant to the technological and social state of the world today. This is a slick and explosive dystopian thriller that I highly recommend to science fiction fans.

Pages: 379 | ASIN: B0B649S5B9

Original source: https://literarytitan.com/2022/09/09/end-man/