Depth
Lev AC Rosen
In a post-apocalyptic flooded New York City, a private investigator’s routine surveillance case leads to a treasure everyone wants to find— and someone is willing to kill for.
Depth combines hardboiled mystery and dystopian science fiction in a future where the rising ocean levels have left New York twenty-one stories under water and cut off from the rest of the United States. But the city survives, and Simone Pierce is one of its best private investigators. Her latest case, running surveillance on a potentially unfaithful husband, was supposed to be easy. Then her target is murdered, and the search for his killer points Simone towards a secret from the past that can’t possibly be real—but that won’t stop the city’s most powerful men and women from trying to acquire it for themselves, with Simone caught in the middle.
Rosen doesn't subvert the genre; he revels in it. Rather than diluting noir's shadowy textural and moral murk, his use of science fiction heightens the tension—not to mention the stakes...Depthis starkly glamorous, telegraphed in clipped prose and sharp dialogue that's as taut as a garrote. —NPR
Lev AC Rosen is the author of the critically acclaimed All Men of Genius. His middle grade novel, Woundabout, will be published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers in Summer 2015. He received his BA from Oberlin College and his MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. Lev is originally from lower Manhattan, and now lives in even lower Manhattan, right at the edge of the water, with his husband and a very small cat. You can find him online at LevACRosen.com.
Book Praise
Rosen doesn't subvert the genre; he revels in it. Rather than diluting noir's shadowy textural and moral murk, his use of science fiction heightens the tension—not to mention the stakes...Depthis starkly glamorous, telegraphed in clipped prose and sharp dialogue that's as taut as a garrote.
—NPR
Heinlein meets Hammett in this whip-smart whodunnit set amid the billowing fog and rising waters of a future New York.
—Chuck Greaves, award-winning author of Hush Money
I have long admired Lev Rosen's strange, genre-bending work—his riff on the detective story is elegant, surprising, and, yes, deep.
—Dan Chaon, National Book Award finalist, author of Await Your Reply
Simone is a female detective in the Kinsey Millhone and V.I. Warshawski mold: tough, tenacious, and pragmatic.
—Library Journal
Sci-fi meets detective fiction, and politics provides the glue. Lev AC Rosen has crafted an easy, fast-read, vacation-ready thriller.
—The Strand
Rosen has written an intrigue-laden detective story that takes advantage of the setting's mystique... Secrets flow like the tide, everybody is hiding something, and trust can get you killed.
—Science Fiction Book Club
An enthralling murder mystery set in an intriguing world... Dive in.
—The London Sun
Everything about this book is just effortlessly cool... Depth is one of the most original crime novels I've read in a long time.
—Bookshelf Butterfly
Rosen drew me in like a moth to a flame... Depth is a fresh take on dystopian fantasy. Rosen is a definite author to watch and love.
—Nihil Sed Tempus
Depth has all the tropes of hardboiled noir delivered with an unusual twist."
—The Mystery Place