Singularity

by
Eldon Farrell

Singularity, a futuristic suspense novel, chronicles the adventures of an unconventional policeman through the decaying streets, of Union City, Virginia.  The protagonist Nathan Miller, a tough cop, claims to be cleaning up the streets of the city, but has a hard time staying clean himself.  Singularity is the first instalment of a series by Eldon Farrell who also wrote the Descent series of suspense novels.

The story starts with mass murder during a church service.  People are gruesomely murdered in the pews without apparently seeing it coming.  Nathan Miller, a decorated policeman, quickly sees it as a cover up for a targeted murder and the chase begins.   In the meantime, Alexis King begins maligning Miller and maintaining on her influential blog site that Miller is a corrupt policeman and a drug trafficker.  Of course, finding out the truth makes the story.

Farrell does a great job of describing the people and the emotions they go through.  However, I missed getting more background.  Why is there a wall in the city?  Why does Miller live on the bad side of the wall while Quinn, his partner lives on the good side?  Who is Quinn and where did he come from?  How did Miller get to be who he is today?  There are many questions that need to be answered in the first book of this series so that we can better follow what comes up next and why. 

 “How we ever allowed Americans to be refugees in our own land. ... Shameful.”
“Call me sweetheart one more time…”
“You are making my skin crawl being this close to your filth.”
“Keep you heads down, shit’s about to get real.”

There are many one-liners like the above that feel like they come from the script of a B-grade movie.  In my opinion most of them are unnecessary and detract from the seriousness of the storyline.

It also struck me as strange that the novel jumped genre from suspense thriller to science fiction near the end.  Readers will have to read it to see what I mean.

I recommend this book to people who like suspense novels because Eldon Farrell writes a good story.  However, because of the inconsistencies noted above, it is not one of the best I have read, so I give it a 3 on 5. 

I want to thank NetGalley and Xpresso Book Tours for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.