#Titanuary ‘Suburban Dicks’ by Fabian Nicieza

About the book…

Andie Stern thought she’d solved her final homicide. Once a budding FBI profiler, she gave up her career to raise her four (soon to be five) children in West Windsor, New Jersey. But one day, between soccer games and trips to the local pool, Andie pulls into a gas station – and stumbles across a murder scene. An attendant has been killed, and the bumbling local cops are in way over their heads. Suddenly, Andie is obsessed with the case, and back on the trail of a killer, this time with kids in tow.

She soon crosses paths with disgraced local journalist Kenny Lee, who also has everything to prove in solving the case. A string of unusual occurrences – and, eventually, body parts – surfaces around town, and Andie and Kenny uncover simmering racial tensions and a decades-old conspiracy.

My thanks to the wonderful publicity team for my gifted e-arc of the first novel by Fabian Nicieza , ‘Suburban Dicks’, which was published in June 2021 in paperback and e-book formats.

It is quite bizarre to say I was caught chortling out loud by the family , as I was reading this fantastic debut novel, especially when it starts with the worst day of gas station attendant , Satkunanathan’s, life, ever.

He is dead, probably murdered, and the crime scene , where he lies, covered with evidence which might convict his killer?

Well that has been trampled over by two new recruits to the West Windsor PD , who cannot even manage to string the police tape properly. It  is made even worse by the arrival of a heavily pregnant woman, accompanied by a child who is in desperate need of a toilet.

Talk about pissing on your chips, this kid pisses all over the crime scene!
After a thorough lecture on protecting the integrity of a crime scene, this apparent suburban mother with her care full of screaming kids is soon on its way, leaving Officer Michele Wu and Niket Patel standing in her dust, wondering who is getting to be bollocked most loudly by their boss.

Tirns out this is no lady , this is Andie Abelman, fast tracked criminal justice junior who swapped legal briefs for maternity pants, academia for suburbia and ambition for, well, settling.

She and her four, soon to be five, children , race the day until husband, and father, Jeff, erstwhile businessman now embarrassed and humiliated after losing a butt load of other people’s money and riding the commuter train to work every day, comes home.

But…a fine instinct for crime and crime solving cannot be squashed down forever, and the tingling need to offer her help to the police dept who clearly have no real idea what is going on, develops into a crescendo.

On the other side of town is Kenny Lee, reporter in need of a story, who, picking up the possible not quite correct info that Satkunanathan *might* have been selling drugs, dives deep into this story, finding things he very much wishes he had left where he found them.

Both Kenny and Andie are both as keen as each other to work out just what is going on, defying expectation that as an expectant mum, Andie should sit on the sidelines of her life, and as a reporter, Kenny should just stick to less inflamatory stories. His Pulitzer prize winning days are in the tailights of his career.

They both experience prejudice,in and out of the work arena, and as a result, are keenly aware of its presence, they bring in FBI contact Ramon to help things along in the discovering the truth stakes. In so doing, the pull the plastic wrap off the settees of the middle class social climbers, and put their feet up on the arms. And possibly stain the covers a bit.

In stepping out of their assigned societal roles, they find their pateince with idiots waning, find their drive and themselves again, and I was so very happy not only to be finding a book as hilarious as this one, but also a story with heart, a key central message and , best of all, a sequel.

“Time changed our prejudices, but it didn’t change the fact that we were prejudiced.”

About the author…

Fabian Nicieza is a writer and editor who is best known as the co-creator of ‘Deadpool’ and for his work on Marvel titles such as ‘X-Men’, ‘X Force’, ‘New Warriors’, and ‘Robin’.

His first novel, the Edgar Award-nominated Suburban Dicks, a sarcastic murder mystery, is on sale now from Putnam Books.

The Dicks will return in ‘The Self Made Widow’, coming June 21st (possibly only U.S publishing).

Links-http://www.fabiannicieza.com/

Twitter @FabianNicieza @TitanBooks