The dust jacket of Denver author Warren Hammond’s debut novel, “KOP,” sports a cover one rarely sees outside of romance novels: a lifelike, vivid image of the main characters. Amid a dismal urban landscape that suggests overcrowding and squalor, a young brunette looks into the distance while a man who could pass for a meaner, somewhat broken down Pierce Brosnan leers into the shadows.

“KOP” ain’t no romance novel, though.

Hammond’s debut is a science fiction thriller/murder mystery sharing more in common with Raymond Chandler than Philip Dick.

A jungle-climate shithole

The novel’s setting may be its primary character. The planet Lagarto, roughly 800 years into the future, is a jungle-climate shithole. After a trade-based bubble burst generations earlier, Lagarto, by way of industries, really only has criminal enterprise and tourism going for it—two modes of industry that are inextricably linked.

For human characters, we have Juno Mozambe, presumably the man on the cover. A crooked cop, Juno once was known for his ass-kicking abilities and take-no-shit approach to corrupt police politics. Now, eager for retirement because of a (literally) shaky hand, Juno agrees to a request from his police-chief-friend to work a bizarre murder case.

Added to his woes is a—wait for it!—new partner, Maggie Orzo, the wet-behind the-ears, privileged hottie, also presumably pictured on the cover.

Cliches

Hammond indulges in his share of hard-boiled-detective clichés, but, he sets the characters and action among a sci-fi world that seems less gimmicky than most. The odd concoction actually mixes well.

Hammond brings out some sci-fi conventions as well, but he also shows that people, for better or worse, will essentially be the same 800 years from now.

Also impressive is the tricky feat Hammond pulls off of making the reader identify and even sympathize with Juno, a guy who could easily have been a villain in another story.

We’re inclined to forgive Juno many of his ethical foibles, especially after we see that if it weren’t for much of the crime at which Juno looks the other way, Lagarto would be even more depressed, economically and in other ways.

Moral relativism becomes a stark reality in a world as failed as Lagarto.

Take notes and make flow charts

For what he sets out to do, the only area in which Hammond may stagger is in the execution of the story itself. Although I don’t have much experience reading mysteries, I found myself many times during “KOP” wishing I took notes and made flow charts, given the feeling that I was somehow cheated out of many of the gasp-inducing revelations.