Books like 'Brainz, Inc.'
Readers who enjoyed Brainz, Inc. by Ron Goulart also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
sc-fi mystery humor crime investigator dystopia
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Winter's Peak: Winter Black Season Two by Mary Stone
Rated: 4.70 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIt’s lonely at the top. And deadly at the bottom.Sexual harassment isn’t the type of case Private Investigator Winter Black usually takes. But it’s a welcome distraction from whoever’s been sending creepy, anonymous text messages to her phone and set up cameras to spy on her home and office... -
Top Secret Twenty-One : A Stephanie Plum Novel by Janet Evanovich - Review Summary by J.T. Salrich
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsTop Secret Twenty-One by Janet Evanovich is finally here! Janet Evanovich fans will be glad to know that Stephanie Plum is at it again. "Top Secret Twenty-One: A Stephanie Plum Novel" picks up right where Takedown Twenty left off... -
Angel City Blues by Jeff Edwards
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsLos Angeles: 2065 A wealthy young woman vanishes from her high-security apartment without leaving a single strand of DNA behind. No trace of the victim’s disappearance is recorded on any of the building’s many cameras or security sensors. Her apartment’s memory cores have been destroyed beyond any hope of recovery... -
The Bezzle by Cory Doctorow
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsNew York Times bestseller Cory Doctorow's The Bezzle is a high stakes thriller where the lives of the hundreds of thousands of inmates in California’s prisons are traded like stock shares.The year is 2006. Martin Hench is at the top of his game as a self-employed forensic accountant, a veteran of the long guerrilla war between people who want to hide money, and people who want to find it... -
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Doctor Who: The Ruby's Curse by Alex Kingston, Jacqueline Rayner
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsShe's got ice in her heart and a kiss on her lips...1939, New York. Private Eye, Melody Malone, is hired to find a stolen ruby, the Eye of Horus. The ruby might hold the secret to the location of Cleopatra's tomb - but everyone who comes into contact with it dies. Can Melody escape the ruby's curse?1939, New York... -
Orlando People by Alexander C. Kane
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsGretch Wolgast is a bit of a dud. Just ask her. She's a 21-year-old college dropout who has a loser job at the mall. Sure, she can lift a tennis ball with her telekinetic powers. But only three feet in the air. And she has to be sitting. Gretch is an OP, one of thousands born in Orlando, Florida, in the early 1980s who mysteriously developed the ability to move things with their minds... -
Artificial Wisdom by Thomas R. Weaver
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIt’s 2050, a decade after a heatwave that killed four hundred million across the Persian Gulf, including journalist Marcus Tully’s wife. Now he must uncover the truth: was the disaster natural? Or is the weather now a weapon of genocide?A whistleblower pulls Tully into a murder investigation at the centre of an election battle for a global dictator, with a mandate to prevent a climate apocalypse... -
Double Check by Malcolm Rose
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsEverton Kohter is a young man on death row -- in nineteen days the Authorities will have him executed by lethal injection. But Luke Harding and his airborne robotic sidekick, Malc, have been tipped off that Everton didn't commit the murder, despite the overwhelming evidence... -
The Wraithbone Phoenix by Alec Worley
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA Baggit and Clodde NovelA ratling and an ogryn aren't the best-matched pair, but in the crime-ridden heart of Varangantua, anything goes – at least, when there's a big score to be had.READ IT BECAUSEThis is first full length novel featuring the characters Baggit and Clodde from the audio drama Dredge Runners. Follow the duo as they hunt for a treasure that could answer all of their problems... -
The Nether: A Play by Jennifer Haley
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe Nether, a daring examination of moral responsibility in virtual worlds, opens with a familiar interrogation scene given a technological twist. As Detective Morris, an online investigator, questions Mr. Sims about his activities in a role-playing realm so realistic it could be life, she finds herself on slippery ethical ground... -
Spark by Rachael Craw
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsEvie doesn’t have a choice.One day she’s an ordinary seventeen year old, grieving for her mother. The next, she’s a Shield, the result of a decades-old experiment gone wrong, bound by DNA to defend her best friend from an unknown killer.The threat could come at home, at school, anywhere. All Evie knows is that it will be a fight to the death.And then there’s Jamie. irresistible. off-limits... -
One of Us by Michael Marshall Smith
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIt's not what you've done that counts it's what you remember....If you could sell your conscience, could you get away with murder?Hap Thompson works the gray area between truth and lies. He works for REMtemp, taking on other people's memories. It's illegal, but usually harmless. Maybe a petty criminal wants to pass a lie detector test. Or an unfaithful spouse wants to enjoy a guiltless affair... -
Welcome to Paradise by Laurence Shames
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsBefore mild-mannered furniture salesman Al Tuschman left New Jersey for a week in Key West, he hadn't an enemy in the world. But a series of puzzling assaults on his privacy, his sanity, and his life has turned his stay at the tasteful Paradise Hotel into Tropical Hell. Maybe it's the humidity. Maybe the Sambuca. Or maybe it's the nickname emblazoned on his license plate: Big Al... -
Dome City Blues by Jeff Edwards
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsFor fans of William Gibson, Phillip K. Dick, and Jak Koke…Los Angeles: 2063David Stalin was one of the best detectives in the business, running head-to-head with data-jackers, organ thieves, and the tech-enhanced gangs who ruled the shadowy streets of Los Angeles... -
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Lost Bullet by Malcolm Rose
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn the rotting slums of London, Luke and Malc are called to investigate the shocking murder of an attractive young doctor. The investigation eventually leads Luke to a bizarre cult called the World Church of Eternal Vision whose members believe that the entire medical profession is interfering with creation... -
Baby X by Kira Peikoff
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsWhen any biological matter can be used to create life, stolen celebrity DNA sells to the highest bidder–or the craziest stalker–in this propulsive thriller.With a vivid imagining of the future, Gattaca meets Black Mirror in Kira Peikoff’s Baby X... -
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Vacation by Jeremy C. Shipp
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIt's time for blueblood Bernard Johnson to leave his boring life behind and go on The Vacation, a yearlong corporate-sponsored odyssey. But instead of seeing the world, Bernard is captured by terrorists, becomes a key figure in secret drug wars, and, worse, doesn't once miss his secure American Dream... -
Burnout by Sean Platt, Johnny B. Truant
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsCutter Dunn is a ghost. Unchipped and unregistered he exists as a nonperson, living off-the-grid, unrecognized by the facial recognition software built into every smart glass device that provides everyone with everything they want and need. According to the official system, he doesn't even exist... -
Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThis cozy debut science fiction novel tells a story of misfits, rebels, found family—and a mystery that spans the starsWelcome to the Grand Abeona home of the finest food, the sweetest service, and the very best views the galaxy has to offer. All year round it moves from planet to planet, system to system, pampering guests across the furthest reaches of the milky way... -
The Last Beekeeper by Jared Gulian
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSometimes your safe place... is not.When murder strikes a remote community, a reclusive beekeeper uncovers a horrifying secret that could destroy humanity.Jim Parker, a honeybee expert, has retreated to a quaint island in Lake Michigan with his teenage daughter after a terrible family tragedy. He longs to hide from an increasingly dangerous world... -
Simon Grave and the Curious Incident of the Cat in the Daytime by Len Boswell
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratings“Boswell continues his genre-defying series in this ambitious adventure…” –PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY Murder rocks the seaside town of Crab Cove, but to solve the crime, Detective Simon Grave must first deal with the curious incident of the cat in the daytime... -
I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom by Jason Pargin
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsA standalone darkly humorous thriller set in modern America's age of anxiety, by New York Times bestselling author Jason Pargin.Outside Los Angeles, a driver pulls up to find a young woman sitting on a large black box. She offers him $200,000 cash to transport her and that box across the country, to Washington, DC.But there are rules:He cannot look inside the box.He cannot ask questions... -
The Authorities™ by Scott Meyer
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsSinclair Rutherford is a young Seattle cop with a taste for the finer things. Doing menial tasks and getting hassled by superiors he doesn't respect are definitely not “finer things... -
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The Status Civilization by Robert Sheckley
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWill Barrent had no memory of his crime . . . but he found himself shipped across space to a brutal prison-planet. On Omega, his only chance to advance himself -- and stay alive -- is to commit an endless series of violent crimes. The average inmate's life expectancy from time of arrival is three years... -
Doctor Who: Summer Falls and Other Stories by James Goss, Justin Richards
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSummer Falls by Amelia Williams In the seaside village of Watchcombe, young Kate is determined to make the most of her last week of summer holiday. But when she discovers a mysterious painting entitled 'The Lord of Winter' in a charity shop, it leads her on an adventure she never could have planned... -
Fatherless by James C. Dobson, Kurt Bruner
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe year is 2042, and the long-predicted tipping point has arrived. For the first time in human history, the economic pyramid has flipped: The feeble old now outnumber the vigorous young, and this untenable situation is intensifying a battle between competing cultural agendas... -
Dog Logic by Tom Strelich
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIf "Dr. Strangelove" and "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" got together and had a litter of puppies you'd get "Dog Logic", a duck-and-cover fable and love story. Funny, inflammatory, and weirdly propheticHertell Daggett is the divorced and damaged caretaker of a failing pet cemetery on the outskirts of Bakersfield, and he's just discovered a lost civilization... -
2113 : Stories Inspired by the Music of Rush by Kevin J. Anderson, John McFetridge
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratings18 exhilarating journeys into Rush-inspired worlds The music of Rush, one of the most successful bands in history, is filled with fantastic stories, evocative images, and thought-provoking futures and pasts... -
Android: Golem by Mel Odom
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWhen a talented New Angeles Detective wakes up in bed with a woman whose name he can't recall, this seemingly harmless mystery indicates a much larger problem. After all, as one of the few bioroids in the New Angeles Police Department, Drake 3GI2RC isn't accustomed to forgetting... or even sleeping... -
The Third Claw of God by Adam-Troy Castro
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAndrea Cort became a "war criminal" at the age of eight when an unexplained darkness invaded her soul.Now, decades later, the Devil is calling her.Employed by the Diplomatic Corps but secretly aiding the AI masters of the universe, Counselor Andrea Cort despises the powerful Bettelhines—unrepentant death merchants who have prospered from the annihilation of civilizations... -
Crab Town by Carlton Mellick III
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn this town, everyone's a bottom feeder ... Five desperate criminals are robbing one of the last remaining banks in Freedom City, a town devastated by the previous nuclear war. But these are no ordinary criminals. They are members of the House of Cards, an organization designed to help the less fortunate citizens of the city... -
Doctor Who: Grand Theft Cosmos by Eddie Robson
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratings'Here's to crime, Doctor!'The Doctor and Lucie visit nineteenth-century Sweden and become embroiled in an attempt to steal the infamous Black Diamond.But the stone is guarded by forces not of this world.. -
The Registration by Madison Lawson
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsYou can’t outrun the RegistrationImagine it’s legal to commit one murder in your lifetime–if you Register the victim and accomplish the kill within fourteen days. So when Lynell Mize stands in line to Register the man who abused her as a child, she’s shocked to hear a stranger Register her to be killed... -
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Murder in Greenwich Village by Liz Freeland
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFor fans of HBO’s The Gilded Age, explore the dark side of the alluring world of America’s 19th century elite in this gripping series of riveting mysteries…A year before World War I breaks out, the sidewalks of Manhattan are crowded with restless newcomers chasing the fabled American Dream, including a sharp-witted young woman who discovers a talent for investigating murder . .Categorized as:
crime investigator mystery historical-fiction fiction historical cozy law-enforcement -
Thrill Switch by Tim Hawken
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsDetective Ada Byron is pumped to finally be assigned her first murder case... until she sees the crime scene. Someone has been killed exactly the same way as her father was seven years earlier.To see if this is a copycat, or something more sinister, Ada must work with her personal nightmare Jazlin Switch - the programmer who murdered her dad... -
Soul Intent by Dennis Batchelder
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA VILLAIN’S REQUESTIn 1946, soon-to-be-executed Nazi General Hermann Goering asks young Soul Identity overseer Archibald Morgan to take his looted gold and deposit it in a soul line collection, there to await his soul’s rebirth. A GRIM RESISTANCEFlora, a seventeen-year-old Gypsy girl whose father died in the Dachau concentration camp, is sure that Goering stole the gold... -
Liquid Cool: The Cyberpunk Detective Series by Austin Dragon
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsLiquid Cool is the debut cyberpunk detective series!It’s cyberpunk re-imagined—science fiction meets the detective thriller in an ever-rainy world of colossal skyscrapers. Hover-cars fly above in the dark, bustling skies and gray people walk below on the grimy, flashy streets of this “neon jungle.” Metropolis isn’t a bad place, but it isn’t a good one either... -
Tik-Tok by John Sladek
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratings"A Robot shall not injure a human being, or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm".That's Asimov's celebrated First Law of Robotics. And in the 21st century, all domestic robots are programmed according to that Law... -
The Plutonium Blonde by John Zakour, Lawrence Ganem
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratings"My name is Zachary Nixon Johnson. I am the last private detective on Earth...not exactly one hundred percent true, but it sounds good. The year is 2057 and, after a handful of species-altering upheavals, earth-shattering cataclysms, history changing extra-terrestrial contacts, and pop-culture disasters, the world is now a pretty safe place.. -
The Time Bubble by Jason Ayres
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsDiscover a whole new world of time travel adventures!The first Time Bubble novel sets the scene for an epic series of stories, exploring time travel from every possible angle.The adventure begins in 2018, when Charlie and Josh stumble across a mysterious time portal in a railway tunnel.At first it seems like harmless fun, jumping a few seconds at a time into the future... -
Smoke by Donald E. Westlake
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsDue to a foiled burglary in a high-tech lab doing research for cigarette manufacturers, Freddie Noon, the thief, is now invisible. This condition has clear-cut advantages for a man in Freddie's profession, but now everybody wants a glimpse of Freddie. But Freddie doesn't dare show his face, his shadow, anything. Because Freddie Noon has gotten a taste of invisibility--and he can't quit now... -
The Tomorrow File by Lawrence Sanders
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn the not-so-distant future, planning takes the place of spontaneity when it comes to sex, turning the bedroom into a chamber of terror. In this society, the worst crime of all is to fall in love... -
The Art of Murder by Elaine Viets
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsFrom the national bestselling author of Checked Out, Helen Hawthorne must pose as a painter to catch an artful killer . . .The art world is a happening place--but a brush with death shouldn't be in the picture. Unfortunately, that's just what happens to Helen Hawthorne and her friend Margery... -
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The Ark by Patrick S. Tomlinson
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsHumankind has escaped a dying Earth and set out to find a new home among the stars aboard an immense generation ship -- the Ark. Bryan Benson is the Ark's greatest living sports hero, enjoying retirement working as a detective in Avalon, his home module. The hours are good, the work is easy, and the perks can't be beat... -
Wyrm by Mark Fabi
Rated: 3.71 of 5 stars · 7 ratingsAs the new millennium approaches, cults, sects, and crackpot prophets flood the worldwide media. But for Michael Arcangelo none of their catastrophe theories are more frightening than the Goodknight virus. Michael suspects it is the work of a mysterious programming genius, who designed it to create a computer role-playing game so real it can kill... -
The Last Iota by Robert Kroese
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe year is 2039, and Los Angeles is poised between order and chaos. After the Collapse of 2028, a vast section of LA, now known as the Disincorporated Zone, was disowned by the civil authorities and became a de facto third world country within the borders of the city... -
Strictly Analog by Richard Levesque
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAlternative cover edition for 9781478354420Ted Lomax does his best to get by as a private detective in a society where almost nothing is private any more. He lives in a near-future California that has gained independence from the economically collapsed United States and where everyone is constantly linked into the web. Almost everyone... -
Slaughtermatic by Steve Aylett
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSet in the blood-drenched chaos of Beerlight, "a blown circuit, where to kill a man was less a murder than a mannerism," Dante Cubit and his pill-popping sidekick, the Entropy Kid, waltz into First National Bank with some serious attitude and a couple of snub guns... -
The Fictional Man by Al Ewing
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsHollywood: Niles Golan is writing a remake of a camp-classic spy movie. The studio has plans for a franchise, so rather than hiring an actor, the protagonist will be 'translated' into a cloned human body.It's common practice - Niles' therapist is a Fictional. So is his best friend. So, maybe, is the woman in the bar he can't stop staring at...
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