Beneath A Thousand Skies

Summary:

A noir story, set in an alternate New York City.

After years of being a cop, and now a private investigator, there’s little that surprises Cole Blackstone. But when someone working for Karl Dolman, the most notorious crime boss in the city asks for his help, Cole is caught off guard, and more than a little afraid.

Dolman’s daughter, Selina, has gone missing. To prevent a gang war that will tear the city apart, Cole must find her. But the job is being made more difficult as everyone is interfering, cops and criminals, and no one wants him to succeed.

Together with his childhood friend, Bracken Hart, the two men must navigate the depths of the city’s underworld for answers.In a race against the clock, Cole needs to find out what happened to Selina, and who is responsible, before the streets run red.

New York Minute is one of those books that packs one hell of a punch for its size; and its one where the summary already sounds amazing – but where the story itself hold so much more. A noir mystery with gang conflict, against a fascinating backdrop of a New York that isn’t the city we know; but also a tale of family and friendship, and a quite, deep cutting look at humanity.

What really hit me about New York Minute, especially given its length and the necessary constraints that places on the worldbuilding is the depth of the world. Through Cole’s interaction with the world, we get to see a layered history and present, Aryan building the world through lived interactions and a degree of character introspection, which does a fantastic job of keeping the story and world grounded in the immediate characters and events, while also giving that scope and feel of the world beyond the edge of the pages. We get glimpses of it, hints of the wider world before the view is brought back into focus; but we know it is there – and honestly one of the things I am most excited about in a continuation to this story, is getting to follow the characters on those paths out to the wider world.

The speculative elements are wonderfully crafted into the matter-fact of this world, and there are times, when it is easy to imagine that the world just took a little step to the left; its familiar and unfamiliar at the same time; and that familiarity only serves to heighten what Aryan has altered in this world. The imagery of this changed this world, and the almost dichotomy between the vision of what the world could have been, and what the world was…and how it is, is startling; and right from the beginning I was fully immersed in this world.

Where this really hit, and what made this book work so well for me is that it is like Aryan placed a mirror at a crossroads of humanity – a confrontation point between past, present and future. The idea of humanity trying to replicate the technology of the past that had resulted in this alternate, recovering worldscape, and largely turning away to a simpler life, to the fact that there are so many elements of humanity that can’t be turned away from. In many ways Cole is that mirror, our eyes and experience of the present; and our voice of introspection on the past and what led to this point; and also the key to where this story and the threads coming off it will lead into the future. It’s an almost brutally honest, cracking open of the ribs and heart of humanity, shining the light on both the good – and the darker tendencies of humans, regardless of world or technology or position. It added an almost haunting quality behind the more in your face brutality and darkness of the mystery and fallout that was the main story.

The other reason why New York Minute worked so well for me was the duo of Cole Blackstone our POV character, and his childhood friend Bracken. There is something about the dynamic of childhood friends, especially ones that are quite different, but together become part of a whole that always gets me; and here Aryan has paired this with two characters who are incredibly tough and capable of violence when the need arrives, but with a tenderness and care that is breathtaking, especially against that bloody and violent backdrop. The quiet moments between the two, the history, the way one slides into a gap in the others defences, does so much to establish the depth and weight of that friendship. They also added an almost western – in the kind of vein of Justified element – to the story, these two standing against both the underworld and the law, bending with each as necessary but carving their own path in an attempt to contain the blood to be spilled.

While, a lot of the other characters are more fleeting – some very fleeting as this novella is not gentle with any of its characters; Aryan manages to capture so many facets of the various people alive in this world. From, those out of their depth in the conflict, to those surviving as best they can, to the larger than life ‘kings’ of this world; and some of my favourite interactions were in the Red Light District, where that violence and that reaching a hand out, collided a few times, and there was such power in those interactions; that they felt like more of a punch to the gut that the roiling violence when it came.

The mystery element was solid, and Aryan does a fantastic job of nudging us forward. I had an inkling about one element which was correct, but the rest I was wrong about, and that is because of our closeness to Cole’s investigation and learning the connections and clues as he does. As with the worldbuilding, there was a depth to the mystery one that threaded out much further and to parties you wouldn’t expect, and all in all it was a solid one with delicious twists and turns – that I wouldn’t want to spoil. I will say the fallout at the end was spectacularly written, brutal and fluid, and very character-centred and the last part of the novella absolutely flew by.

New York Minute was a fantastic read from start to finish, and I am hopeful that we will get to see more of these characters and this world, because I am well and truly hooked.