“ water-wars thriller set in the Southwest only a few decades from now. newscasts warned of water rationing and extended drought, I felt the hot panting breath of the desert on my nape and I shivered, hoping that Bacigalupi’s vision of the future won’t be ours.” -Denise Hamilton, Los Angeles Times Reading the novel in 93-degree March weather while L.A. Francis Dam that killed 600 people and haunted its builder, Mulholland, into the grave. Its visual imagery evokes Dust Bowl Okies in the Great Depression and the catastrophic 1928 failure of the St. The book’s nervous energy recalls William Gibson at his cyberpunk best. The casual violence and slang may bring to mind A Clockwork Orange. His use of water as sacred currency evokes Frank Herbert’s Dune. Bacigalupi weaves page-turning action with zeitgeisty themes. Although one is set in the past and the other in a dystopian future, both are neo-noir tales with jaded antiheroes and ruthless kingpins who wield water as lethal weapons to control life-and mete out death. Reading Paolo Bacigalupi’s richly imagined novel The Water Knife brings to mind the movie Chinatown. But when water is more valuable than gold, alliances shift like sand, and the only thing for certain is that someone will have to bleed if anyone hopes to drink. For Angel, Lucy, and Maria time is running out and their only hope for survival rests in each other’s hands. With bodies piling up, bullets flying, and Phoenix teetering on collapse, it seems like California is making a power play to monopolize the life-giving flow of a river. There, he encounters Lucy Monroe, a hardened journalist with no love for Vegas and every reason to hate Angel, and Maria Villarosa, a young Texas refugee who survives by her wits and street smarts in a city that despises everything that she represents. When rumors of a game-changing water source surface in drought-ravaged Phoenix, Angel is sent to investigate. A Las Vegas water knife, Angel “cuts” water for his boss, Catherine Case, ensuring that her lush, luxurious arcology developments can bloom in the desert, so the rich can stay wet, while the poor get nothing but dust. Into the fray steps Angel Velasquez, detective, leg-breaker, assassin and spy. In the American Southwest, Nevada, Arizona, and California skirmish for dwindling shares of the Colorado River. Paolo Bacigalupi, New York Times-Bestselling author and National Book Award Finalist, dives once again onto our uncertain future with his first thriller for adults since his multi-award winning debut phenomenon The Windup Girl.
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