Spiegelman’s magical writing invites a deeper connection both with the landscape of this unusual police procedural and with the grim sense of despair that the security force, known simply as Standard Division, can evoke through its enormous power ... Spiegelman’s plotting and pace are flawless, and his interludes of heightened language raise the tension ... resonates with the deep melancholy and simmering resentments that classic hard-boiled detective fiction embraces, but with far more grace and beauty. There are passages that can haunt, all on their own ... This all adds up to the one complaint likely for this compelling novel: Somehow, it ends too soon.
It’s the perfect atmosphere for an isolated manor house mystery, which is only one of the many sub-genres at play in this refreshingly inventive take on the crime novel. From the Gothic undertones of the scandal-racked boarding school and the slick machinations of modern corporate espionage, to the Scandinoir atmosphere of the bleak coastal towns and the techno-thriller details of what exactly Ondstrand Biologic is capable of doing, this novel effectively melds various strands of detective fiction to create something fresh and original ... I hope this is merely the first in a series, as Myles is a tremendously engaging, intelligent hero I definitely want to read more about, and the speculative setting is ripe for further exploration.
... stylishly penned, meteorologically moody and ever so slightly Gothic ... Mr. Spiegelman can mint a crisp image in a single sentence ... In Agent Myles the author has created a hero for all disjointed seasons: capable of thrashing a thug with his bare fists or soothing a distraught witness, even as he acknowledges the phantoms of his own traumatic youth, and mourns the recent loss of his working and romantic partner. Whether the book heralds the beginning of a new series or not, it’s a humdinger.
Spiegelman is a top-notch storyteller, and his latest will appeal equally to those who enjoy mainstream procedurals and to genre-blending readers who relish crime novels set in the future.
... an admirable attempt at melding Agatha Christie and Raymond Chandler, with hints of Nordic noir. But Myles, who narrates, is pretty much a blank slate, a clinical sort with a touch of sarcasm to lighten things but no personal history to speak of aside from the death two years ago of his girlfriend. He has an odd (some might say creepy) fixation on women's looks and smells ... And there is nothing to suggest any physical presence on his part, so when he suddenly makes like Jack Reacher in a fight scene, you wonder where that came from ... A smart, atmospheric novel with a hole at its core.
Spiegelman makes a rare misstep with this venture into quasi dystopian territory ... The campus’s history as a boarding school with a sordid past reinforces the locked-room aspects of Myles’s investigation, which bogs down in repeated descriptions of Stans as sexually aggressive and emotionally detached. When Myles confronts the company founders with an account of Stans’s foray into corporate espionage, the school’s horrific legacy becomes an immediate, deadly threat to the investigator. Only the murky, ambiguously explained omnipotence of his own agency can save Myles as he strives to solve a crime within a crime. This falls short of this otherwise accomplished author’s best.