Failed State: A Novel

by Christopher Brown Narrated by MacLeod Andrews

Overview

A*Philip K. Dick Award Nominee

""The novel is as tense and thrilling as any of Brown's work, and as full of rage and hope. It's a novel that truly reckons with the enormity of *both our climate emergency and the system that produced it - a tale of *human imperfection and redemption."" -- Cory Doctorow, bestselling author of Walkaway

In this second dystopian legal thriller from the author of the acclaimed Rule of Capture and Tropic of Kansas, lawyer Donny Kimoe juggles two intertwined cases whose outcomes will determine the course of America's future-and his own.

In the aftermath of a second American revolution, peace rests on a fragile truce. The old regime has been deposed, but the ex-president has vanished, escaping justice for his crimes. Some believe he is dead. Others fear he is in hiding, gathering forces. As the factions in Washington work to restore order, Donny Kimoe is in court to settle old scores-and pay his own debts come due.

Meanwhile, the rebels Donny once defended are exacting their own kind of justice. In the ruins of New Orleans, they are building a green utopia-and kidnapping their defeated adversaries to pay for it. The newest hostage is the young heiress to a fortune made from plundering the country-and the daughter of one of Donny's oldest friends. In a desperate gambit to save his own skin, Donny switches sides to defend her before the show trial. If he fails, so will the truce, dragging the country back into violence. But by taking the case, he risks his last chance to expose the atrocities of the dictatorship-and being tried for his own crimes against the revolution.

To save the future, Donny has to gamble his own. The only way out is to find the evidence that will get both sides back to the table, and secure a more lasting peace. To do that, Donny must betray his clients' secrets. Including one explosive secret hidden in the ruins, the discovery of which could extinguish the last hope for a better tomorrow-or, if Donny plays it right, keep it burning.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

07/13/2020

Attorney Donny Kimoe returns, eight years after the events of Rule of Capture, in Brown’s larger-than-life near-future legal thriller of environmental collapse and social rebuilding. While trying to find justice for the son of murdered activists and working to free a kidnapped heiress, Donny has to negotiate his way back into the Free City of New Orleans after having been exiled by the rebels that control the city. To overcome their distrust of him, born of his work defending a despotic former president from a death sentence, Donny must reconnect with their leader, his ex-girlfriend Joyce—who also happens to be the one who kidnapped the heiress in the first place, and who is now concocting a scheme to turn ecoterrorist. Brown adds new layers to the wildly imaginative dystopian setting of his first two works, now with an emphasis on environmental law. The scenes of sunken New Orleans are vivid and will keep the pages turning to an overloaded climax that nevertheless sets things up nicely for the next volume. Readers will be eager to see it. Agent: Mark Gottlieb, Trident Media Group. (Aug.)

From the Publisher

"The novel is as tense and thrilling as any of Brown's work, and as full
of rage and hope. It's a novel that truly reckons with the enormity of
both our climate emergency and the system that produced it - a tale of
human imperfection and redemption." — Cory Doctorow, bestselling author of Walkaway

"Brown’s larger-than-life near-future legal thriller of environmental collapse and social rebuilding…[he] adds new layers to the wildly imaginative dystopian setting of his first two works, now with an emphasis on environmental law. The scenes of sunken New Orleans are vivid and will keep the pages turning to an overloaded climax that nevertheless sets things up nicely for the next volume. Readers will be eager to see it." — Publishers Weekly

Cory Doctorow

"The novel is as tense and thrilling as any of Brown's work, and as full
of rage and hope. It's a novel that truly reckons with the enormity of
both our climate emergency and the system that produced it - a tale of
human imperfection and redemption."

Product Details

BN ID:	2940177172811
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	08/11/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged

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