The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi

Working as an enforcer for a corrupt developer, Angel Velasquez teams up with a hardened journalist and a street-smart Texan to investigate rumors of California's imminent monopoly on limited water supplies. By the National Book Award-finalist author of The Windup Girl.

Constantly ready to be disappointed but instead, except for the twaddle of the sex scene, the novel stuck together very nicely. Believable scenarios, good pacing, kept me going with no problem. If you like your dystopian novel with a “yeah, I can really see that happening” then this is for you, but it comes along with a fair bit of violence and not many avenues to Hollywood endings.

Read the first third of the book, enjoyed it thus far. It's a dark world, which became a turn off due to a personal setback.

This book builds a great world and a great thriller plot and then mostly fills it with terrible writing. But still a fun read.

Similar to The Windup Girl, Bacigalupi writes his dystopian futures so gritty and realistic, full of minor details and visceral descriptions, that you're easily pulled into this scorching heat of a dried up mad-max-esque hell where crime flourishes and everyone fights about the hottest commodity: water. The higher-ups send their killers after suddenly surfaced water-rights claims, while regular people need to work/fight/sell to receive the few cups of water for their everyday survival.