Midwestern Chrome

Midwestern Chrome is set in a near-future Nebraska built from frayed wiring and spare parts, lit by neon promises and smoldering with broken dreams. People there are enthusiastic about body augmentation and self-interest and short on moral reckoning.

The centerpiece is the novella Our Bird Trills Mechanical. Harlan is a burned-out detective stuck on a cold case, and his one curious lead is the severed head of an android that cries for help in the voice of his dead wife. It carries her memories and her personality, but is it really Elsie?

The rest of the book fills out this world with desperate people who will do whatever it takes. Lucian Lucky is a prizefighter addicted to augments who must decide whether winning is worth the price. Javier is a henchman who has fallen for the niece of his violent boss. Freaks, fighters, fixers and screw-ups all appear, in a place where fortune favors the corrupt.