Atria, 2023. 320 pages. Sci-Fi / Mystery
In an alternate 2009, Argentina has supplanted the USA as a world superpower ever since development of psychopigments to win the Falkland’s War. Created as weapons, these colorful chemicals can produce almost any human emotion upon contact, and they have been embraced in the West as both pharmaceutical panaceas and popular recreational drugs. Black market traders peddle everything from Blackberry Purple (which causes terror) to Sunshine Yellow (which induces happiness). Psychopigment Enforcement Agent Kay Curtida works a beat just outside the ruins of San Francisco, chasing down smalltime crooks. But when an old friend offers a tantalizing lead on a career-making case, Curtida’s humdrum existence suddenly gets a boost. Little does she know that she's on a tangled path leading to an overdue reckoning with her family and her own emotions.
I'm a big fan of works that blur the lines between genres, and Pardo manages to do that beautifully here. This work is a combination of the gritty noir and hardboiled detective stories from the early 20th century on one hand, and the post-apocalyptic alternate history science fiction on the other. The idea of weaponizing human emotion is fascinating and refreshing, though I wish there had been more of a good twist at the end. And as an Argentine American myself, I secretly relished in this world where Argentina was a superpower, conquering both the Falkland Islands and Great Britain itself (even though Argentina is made out to be the bad guys; haters gonna hate).