From veteran New York Times technology reporter Michel Marriott—an absorbing debut with the sharp social commentary of Walter Mosley and Michel Houllebecq, and the incisive sci-fi thriller appeal of P.D. James's Children of Men. The Skull Cage Key is set in mid-twenty-first-century Harlem, but it will stir readers to think deeper about our own era and its troubles and promise. Armstrong, a life-long Harlemite who's made it as a young, middle-class professional, is celebrating Chinese New Year 2041 with his boss (and lover) when they're assaulted in her hotel. Armstrong is found unconscious by authorities who believe he played a role in his companion's brutal killing, as her headless body is discovered in the suite's Jacuzzi. So begins a story that unfolds on two main paths. One follows Armstrong as he goes on the run, avoiding the police—and the many, many others with an interest in the case—while trying to unravel exactly what happened that night. Help and companionship come in the form of Oona, a beautiful sex worker with an unexpectedly deep reservoir of information—and connections. The other follows Reagan, a disgraced ex-cop who's life revolves around his slowly dying mother, until he's unexpectedly invited back onto the force to help with a case on his old beat—Harlem, where a powerful new drug called Hedz has become all the rage with the young, rich, and bored. While Reagan struggles to return to form, his paths and Armstrong's gradually draw closer together, as the story behind the new drug becomes more clear. The Skull Cage Key is a dark, erotic speculative fiction with a powerful thriller kick. It has elements of what Walter Mosley calls his own "afrofuturist science fiction," but it's just as reminiscent of the work of Philip K. Dick, what Margaret Atwood did in books like The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake, Octavia Butler's Kindred and Wild Seed, and Michel Houllebecq's The Possibility of an Island. A compelling and gratifying debut.