In Decorat, Soldiers don’t come home unless they’re dead or retired. Major Erika Belcroft isn’t happy to be home.
She’s back from the frontlines because a lot of people are disappearing, and one of those people is her father.
If there’s a door is in her way, she’ll smash it. If the cops try to stop her, she’ll flatten them. If a squad of hitmen try to take her out, she’ll put them down. And if she’s going to have an egg, it better be hard-boiled.
There’s no doubt that Erika is tough. She’s tough like Boston Blackie, tough like Rick Deckard, tough like Tracer Bullet. But in the gritty world of Decorat, tough isn’t enough.
As she busts her way through the city’s underbelly searching for her father, Erika discovers that even a battle-hardened, lasergun-toting, cane-sword swinging veteran needs some help.
Not that she wants any help (other than her cyborg cat Tristan–who doesn’t want an attack cat with robotic legs for a pet?), especially help from scrappy street urchins and courtly imperial investigators.
But an ancient evil leaves her no choice of new friends–and takes away some of her old ones.
What begins as a dystopian-noir detective story in the smog-choked crawl-spaces and cramped back rooms of the Grids–where brutal gangsters sometimes have the most honor–takes a demonic turn and Erika ends up in a battle with something far more powerful than criminal gangs and wealthy politicos.
Belcroft: Cognitor Fracti is a fabulous stomp through a dark city filled with darker characters.