The corruption is there. The political favors are there. The organized crime guys are there. This book doesn’t miss a beat when it comes to that tough guy image. It even pairs Juno with a young female rookie cop with something to prove to the world ala Dirty Harry.

Maggie Orzo is a young woman descended from the wealthiest families on Koba. She’s young and idealistic, but Juno also finds out that she will pursue her own ambitions and passions, which include being one of the best and highest-ranking policeman in the department. I think she’s a very impressive character and I can’t wait to see how Hammond treats her in the sequel coming out sometime next year. It’s supposed to be called Ex-KOP.

Hammond’s world, Koba, came to life for me in this book as well. I tried to imagine what it would be like to have a world constantly on the verge of being swallowed up by the jungle that fought to reclaim all the civilized areas every day. On Koba, there’s only five hours of sunlight followed by a twenty-two hours of night. The predominant life form on the planet tends to be reptilian and tropical. Hammond’s descriptions of an everyday life that includes street cleaners using flame throwers to torch creeping vegetation, stratified canopy life among the trees, and the Koba River that flows through everything anchored me to this world. By the time I’d finished reading the book, I felt like I’d actually gone to an alien world and spent hard time there.

The economic disparity between the haves and the have-nots addresses today’s world, but also any Third World nations struggling to simply survive. Past successes of the culture live on in the city, but the desperation of those who’ve never had that taste of success is palpable. These are the common threads that run through every culture in the world today, and that have ever existed. Hammond obviously loves writing about the ideology of economics and class struggle.

Although experienced readers probably won’t find anything new in this novel, it’s still an amazing read. I picked it up, turned through a few pages, and was walking a beat on alien turf with a damaged and paranoid police detective that I at first abhorred and later came to love and respect. KOP went down as smoothly as a cool drink on a hot, summer day, and it was filled with enough twists and turns to keep me on my toes throughout.

As stated, Hammond already has a second book in the series in the works. Personally, I can’t wait. Although the first book finished up all the plots that the author had shaken out, there are still yet a number of problems and character actions to work out. Not to mention, Hammond built the world big. There should be a lot more stories here to tell. I just hope he gets to tell them all.