Dietz, William C. Deadeye. Mutant Files No. 1. Ace, 2015.
William C. Dietz is best known as a writer of military scifi, including novelizations based on the Halo universe. So, it is no surprise that when he writes a near-future police thriller, his heroine is a crack shot, the bad guys are very bad indeed, and there are lots of them. Bioterroism has produced an America divided into norms and mutants, with a few cyborgs tossed in for good measure. The heroine is likably kickass, but the plot is a bit predictable in places. A strong 3 stars. ( )

Cassandra is cop in a future Los Angeles that now deals with living with a plague that mutates people if they don’t die from it. And if you mutate you are then a carrier for the virus until you die. The world is fractured along the lines of infected and normal. The book starts out as the usual cop centric mystery of find the kidnap victim and all the evidence points that she has been taken to the mutant lands to be a surrogate mother. Cassandra is on the case and is teamed with a cop from the mutant side. If I didn’t think about the problems of biology it was an ok read but there were a few too many plot points that made me scratch my head. The main plot was good and the ending wasn’t bad but a few too many places in the book made me stop for a second and try and think of a workaround that would get over what would be a science plot point. A bubble gum read and not too bad if you like mysteries but I had a few too many parts that I questioned the science to really bother to read the next one in the series.

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley
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I am not the target audience for this book. It read like an action movie, which is great if you're okay with your main characters killing lots of people. I find that while I can go with it in a movie, in a book where I want to really connect with the narrator all the killing makes me unable to. Also, there's quite a bit of male gaze in this book, which I personally prefer to do without. YMMV. [I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.] ( )

good dramatic structure although not particularly deep - semi likable characters - room for further world development
probably wont read more by author ( )

Some have found Dietz's multiple point-of-view technique jarring; while I found it took some acclimation, it was interesting and lent a unique tone to the futuristic police procedural story being told. Others want to pick at the technical aspects of the interaction between contagious and non-contagious people, normals and mutants in the story, whereas I believe it to be completely imaginary and therefore unimportant. I found the book engaging, a quick, easy read, and entertaining. Therefore I'd recommend it for pleasurable reading. It is a story, not history, or a text book, read it in that light and I believe you will find it enjoyable. ( )