Enjoyable and original near-future thriller with echoes of Philip Dick, William Gibson, and Haruki Murakami. ( )

End Man is set in 2030, and Austin makes this future world plausible. Raphael works for a company called Norval that obtains the rights to the online remains of people who have died. They then sell that data to family and friends who want to remember the ones they have lost.
However, there are Blanks and possums, both of whom are trouble for Norval's bottom line. Natural Blanks are kids that die too young to have an online presence, and so are safe from exploitation. On the other hand, Intentional Blanks, or Digital Luddites as they are sometimes called, purposefully choose to not use technology so that they don't have a digital footprint and, if the corporation can be believed, are also sabotaging infrastructure to push their agenda. Raphael is an End Man, that is, he investigates whether a person is dead or playing possum. Possums have faked their death and are living off the grid, usually because they are hiding to avoid prosecution or are hiding from family or foe. There is no law against being a possum, but Norval can't profit from their online data if they are still alive.
The dead surround Raphael and his Necrology Department colleagues every moment of the workday, but Raphael has other ghosts in his life. Suffering from a form of dromophobia, the fear of crossing streets, Raphael has spent his life limited to a square mile of Los Angeles between Fairfax, Beverly, Wilshire, and La Brea, almost a perfect square. Within that boundary, he has grown up, gone to school, learned to skateboard, and got his job in an art deco building at the corner of Wilshire and Fairfax, working for Norval. His mother was an artist who worked for the LA County Museum of Art, which is between Norval and the La Brea Tar Pits; however, she died young, and Raphael now lives in the apartment he grew up in. Raphael shares her interest in art and uses oil painting as a form of therapy.
The problems all start when Maglio, the CEO of Norval, shows a particular interest in a suspected possum that Raphael is investigating, a physicist working in quantum mechanics who committed suicide. Both Raphael and another End Man, Matt, start seeing odd things around the office, and while they have unlimited access to online data, they are finding files that are closed to them. The night custodian at Norval tells Raphael about the ghosts he hears when he is cleaning near R&D, and a homeless woman named Pink tells him that he must run because he only has 13 days. But 13 days to do what? And where can he run if he can't get out of his square?
Early on, Austin introduces quantum physics analogies, like Schrodinger's cat, to illustrate that End Men are trying to determine whether a suspected possum is dead or alive, but that sometimes being able to know the living/dead state of the possum depends on whether you can open the box or not. We also hear about the Ghost in the Machine, which leads us to believe that the custodian's ghosts might not be ghosts. Raphael's job requires him to determine if a person is truly dead or not, but what if they are still alive after death?
The premise of End Man is interesting, and Raphael sounds like someone that I'd like to meet. His phobia causes problems for him such as the inability to go to concerts beyond his boundaries and keep a girlfriend once they know his secret, and that makes us sympathetic to him. His skateboard is his constant companion and as much a character as some of the humans.
However, the book was longer than it needed to be. As with many office dramas I've read, it spent too much time on the personality of the floor supervisor and his relationship with his employees. Either from personal experience or from TV, we know the dramas that exist in cube farms. Another tedious section involves a back and forth between Raphael and an Artificial Intelligence about what is better, life or afterlife. And while these aspects reduced my interest in continuing the story, there were other parts that I thought could have been flushed out. Thus, the story had problems with flow and pacing.
I found myself rooting for Raphael to be successful in his work, love life, and artistic endeavors. But the powers-that-be had other plans for him, and it is only because I wanted to know if Raphael could escape from his prison that I led me to finish the book.


( )

In the not too distant future our online presence - all our searching, swiping and clicking - can be used to make an AI replica of each person. An AI, that loved ones could visit and talk to. For a fee of course. But of course some use this new advancement to hide from the law. This is where End Men like Raphael come in. To figure out who is playing possum.

The concept of this book immediately drew my attention and I think it was executed decently, although it could do with a slight edit. The timeline feels rather off at times. But if you're willing to look past that, it becomes a fun, action packed book that examines the darker sides of humanity.

The main character was likeable and relatable. Although a little unrealistic at times (I have one main complaint towards the end of the book that I'm sure most of those who have read it would agree with). I loved how we learned about who he is and his experiences and how he perceives the world through his neo-depressionist painting (in which he is trying to depict his whole life). I could definitely relate to a lot of his pain and anxiety.

Thank you to the author for providing me with a copy for this book. I hope others enjoy it too ( )

I truly enjoyed reading this highly original novel. Main character Alex has a fear of crossing streets, which confines him to live his life in a fairly small geographic space. The book tells the story of how he has made a life for himself within his personal boundaries. He has a job that he's able to perform without leaving his space. When he gets a new assignment, all sorts of interesting things start happening.

This quickly becomes a thriller as Alex tries to solve this new mystery and discovers increasingly worrisome things. I appreciate how the author developed and evolved the main character, and seeing how his life changed as he learned more about the case in question, his employer, the world around him, and himself.

Highly recommended if you're looking for something original! ( )

I loved the concept of this book and was excited to read the first few chapters but then it just fell apart. Events happen for no discernable reason, the plot is glacially slow to develop and show any coherence and the book was just generally hard to stay invested in. It is a REALLY solid concept and the foundation for a great novel is there but more work needed to be done on how the story flows and develops to make it more engaging. ( )