RETURN TO WATER CITY
Chris McKinney’s acclaimed sci-fi noir series continues in Book 2 of the Water City Trilogy, Eventide, Water City.
Hawaiʻi author Chris McKinney’s sweeping, cinematic follow-up to Midnight, Water City explores technology, class, climate change,
and the lengths desperate people will go in order to protect the ones they love.
ON SALE NOW
Year 2150: Eight years after the murder of Akira Kimura, Water City’s renowned scientist and anointed “God,” the nameless antihero who tracked down Akira’s killer is no longer a detective, but a stay-at-home dad. While his wife climbs the corporate ladder of the city’s police department, he raises his now nine-year-old daughter and occasionally takes the odd job as a bounty hunter.
His domestic bliss is threatened when Ascalon’s Scar—the mark left by Akira’s destruction of Sessho-seki, the asteroid that nearly wiped out life on Earth—vanishes from the sky and a familiar face thought dead returns from the ocean depths to exact revenge on humanity. On a journey to the moon and back, Water City’s antihero will risk everything, including his family, to save the last of the human race—even if it means unraveling the dark conspiracy at the heart of their world.
Eventide, Water City • Chris McKinney • ISBN: 9781641294317 • On sale July 11, 2023 • Hardcover • Soho Crime
THE SUN SETS ON WATER CITY
12.05.2023
Chris McKinney’s acclaimed sci-fi noir series concludes in Book 3 of the Water City Trilogy, Sunset, Water City.
Faith, technology, power, and parenthood clash in the last installment of the sci-fi noir Water City trilogy.
Year 2160: It’s been ten years since the cataclysmic events of Eventide, Water City, where 99.97 percent of the human population was possessed or obliterated by Akira Kimura, Water City’s renowned scientist and Earth’s former savior.
Our nameless antihero, a synesthete and former detective, and his daughter, Ascalon, navigate through a post-apocalyptic landscape populated by barbaric Zeroes—the permanent residents of the continent’s biggest landfill, The Great Leachate—who cling to the ways of the old world. They live in opposition to Akira’s godlike domination of the planet—she has taken control of the population that viewed her as a god and converted them into her Gardeners, zombie-like humans who plod along to build her vision of a new world.
What that world exactly entails, Ascalon is not entirely sure, but intends to find out. Now nineteen, she, a synesthete herself, takes over this story while her father succumbs to grief and decades of Akira’s manipulation. Tasked with the impossible, Ascalon must find a way to free what’s left of the human race.
Sunset, Water City • Chris McKinney • ISBN: 9781641295130 • On sale Dec. 5, 2023 • Hardcover • Soho Crime
Author Chris McKinney presents the Water City Trilogy and speaks on the fusion of genres he employs to tell one cohesive story.
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Discover the Book 1 in Chris McKinney’s brilliant new sci-fi noir Trilogy.
In a future of underwater cities, artificially extended lifespans, and a wealth gap that has outlived a near-apocalypse, a world-weary detective investigates the grisly murder of the enigmatic scientist who once saved the world.
Year 2142: Earth is forty years past a near-collision with the asteroid Sessho-seki. Akira Kimura, the scientist responsible for eliminating the threat, has reached heights of celebrity approaching deification. But now, Akira feels her safety is under threat, so after years without contact, she reaches out to her former head of security, who has since become a police detective.
When he arrives at her deep-sea home and finds Akira methodically dismembered, this detective will risk everything—his career, his family, even his own life—and delve back into his shared past with Akira to find her killer. With a rich, cinematic voice and burning cynicism, Midnight, Water City is both a thrilling neo-noir procedural and a stunning exploration of research, class, climate change, the cult of personality, and the dark sacrifices we are willing to make in the name of progress.
Midnight, Water City • Chris McKinney • ISBN: 9781641293686 • On sale now • Trade paperback • Soho Crime
“Binge-worthy . . . The noir tone of the trilogy is sure to appeal as much to detective novel readers as it is to science fiction fans—and its commentary on class, climate, and the morality of truth is absolutely on point.”
—Paste
“This distinctive novel brims with delightful innovations, razor-sharp social commentary and richly wrought characters, all set against a teeming underwater city.”
—Newsweek
“This gritty noir set in a sci-fi landscape is a real page-turner.”
—Buzzfeed
“The whodunit angle may be familiar but Chris McKinney makes it work with his world-building chops and the creation of an authentic protagonist.”
—The Toronto Star
“A must-read . . . Midnight, Water City is one of those rare novels that will satisfy fans of crime fiction as well as diehard lovers of classic SF. McKinney is a talented storyteller who created an all-too-real world under the ocean that feels perfectly plausible and yet entirely new.”
—Locus Magazine
“McKinney writes the story as if it were a Greek tragedy, right down to the family struggles of epic proportions, and it’s a reflection on intergenerational trauma, which will resonate with many readers . . . A murder mystery that keeps you on the edge of your seat.”
—The Globe and Mail
“In this pitch-black noir, McKinney raises the tension step-by-step as his protagonist encounters foes both physical and mental, all while building a detailed universe.”
—BookBub
