Review: Killing is My Business, Adam Christopher

Adam Christopher’s second Ray Electromatic Mystery, Killing is My Business, suffers a bit from going too sci-fi while still trying to maintain the noir.

Adam Christopher knows his way around hardboiled detective fiction. After all, Killing is My Business has rather a well-known quote from Raymond Chandler before the story begins: “When in doubt have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.”

But the guns used in Killing is My Business aren’t always the ones Philip Marlowe would be familiar with. Christopher’s Ray Electromatic instead is, as his name suggests, a robot, and as the title suggests, he’s not so much a detective anymore as an assassin.

In a few short sentences, I’ve summed up my main problem with Killing is My Business: Christopher’s bitten off a lot with the genres he’s trying to mix. This isn’t to say that I’m against mixing them up at all, but he runs into a particular issue.

Classic hardboiled fiction has a tendency to avoid heavy serializing, but Killing is My Business doesn’t really work unless you at least know the basics of Made to Kill, Christopher’s first work with Ray. Of course, the counterpoint is that “well, he’s not writing straight hardboiled fiction.”

However, when Ray’s narration has that certain rhythm and cadence we tend to associate with its detectives (a strong point here), the impression is that hardboiled fiction is Christopher’s base genre. This is backed up by that Chandler quotation.

But, on the other hand, you can make the case that it isn’t his base genre. That point leaves yours truly feeling a little more mixed about the experience after all. Much as the science here is magnetic tapes and old-fashioned robots (the book is, after all, set in an alternate version of the ’60s), it’s still also heavily science fiction, almost reminiscent of Slaves of the Switchboard of Doom but with more murder and less overt attempts at humor.

I will say, though, that there is some sly humor to be had here, and it’s a personal favorite part of the book. Between Ray and Ada, his computer partner, there’s some excellent interplay, and Ray himself is a fine narrator with a pretty straight delivery of dry humor.

Earlier, I mentioned that serialization is a problem here in terms of the hardboiled adaptation, and it feels like this book inches closer to what’s actually going on with Ray and Ada. Christopher’s put in a limitation — Ray’s memory tape only lasts about 24 hours, leaving him dependent on Ada to inform him what’s been going on in his current cases — which feels mostly reasonable, if still a little contrived, once you think about it. Remember, ’60s technology. However, “inches closer” does not narratively satisfy this reader.

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Ultimately, it’s not that I don’t like this book so much as I like the idea of it and just am not quite as sure on the execution. (Pun very unintended, considering Ray’s line of work.) Killing is My Business is quite the spare book at under 300 pages in my edition, but it’s trying to pack so much in that, well, it might streamline things a bit if he just had a man walk in with a normal gun at some point instead of dancing around several different plotlines.