Alex Hughes’s second novel in the Mindspace Investigations series is dystopian noir at its finest as it continues the story of Adam, a telepath and former drug addict working as a police consultant.

In a post-apocalyptic Atlanta, where nano-technology and anti-gravity cars exist alongside a tech-phobic society, once powerful telepath, Adam, is struggling to rebuild his ability when he is called to assist in solving a brutal murder. At the crime scene he realises something is off, and it isn’t just the fact that the victim is a former telepathy student – one he ruined irreparably. It soon becomes clear that this is much more than a domestic dispute and as Adam follows the trail he confronts an old enemy and discovers a new evil that could destroy his world. With his job on the line, Adam must confront his past, and his pride, to solve this case and get out alive.

The grungy setting and slightly cynical approach Adam brings to his work places Sharp firmly in the noir detective tradition while the society in which he exists make this unmistakably dystopian. At the heart of this novel – as with the first, Clean – is a solid crime story with plenty of scope for Adam to reveal his character. Like a true noir hero, Adam is often his own worst enemy and reluctant to do the right thing, yet his flaws are also what make him relatable. The story unfolds with great pace, and Hughes blends action with introspection effortlessly. Hughes’s world-building is subtle. She brings a familiarity to this future-world by grounding it in everyday activities such as paperwork and coffee (though the coffee is synthetic and the paperwork sometimes facilitated by a human database). Those who prefer more fantastical elements to sci-fi may find this too grounded in today, however, the world-building is well realised and there is scope for this to develop as the series grows.

Sharp explores the triumph of humanity over technology and laces it with well-paced action, snappy dialogue and a dose of existential angst. A great read.