Declan Finn
Jul 15, 2026
From Sci-Fi espionage noir to 80s action thriller in one book
Phoenix is a difficult novel to introduce. It is the first novel by Lori Janeski. It goes through several genres within a well-developed sci-fi setting. We start with a buddy cop genre as mismatched as Lethal Weapon, a initial terrorist mystery that looks like 24, until it turns into a battle royale and running shootout during a motorcycle chase. Division 7 cop David Carter has strayed too close to the line once too often, so he’s saddled with rookie agent Veronique de Tournay to observe him and see just how over the line he is. What starts as a stopping a single terrorist incident spirals into a rabbit hole that bounces around five different planets, fighting off multiple threats, stalked every step of the way by a Bond villain masterminding everything behind the scenes, as well as his pet psychopath. It’s fun. The book is written very much as a police or espionage procedural with two primary points of view, both from our leads. There are occasional asides to the primary henchman, who is coocoo for Cocoa Puffs. Janeksi’s characters tend to think through and observe everything. While she never reaches the level of depth that Tolkien does, it’s clearly what she’s shooting for. There are elements of the first half of the story that feels like if Robert Ludlum or Mickey Spillane wrote scifi cops instead of spies and PIs. Go to planet A, get shot at, stop terrorists, get information; go to planet B, repeat. Then we get halfway through the novel and it turns into an 80s action movie. We even get a motorcycle chase. Frankly, my only complaint with the book is that the third act drags a little. But it’s also the end of a 200,000 word book, so I may have been the one dragging. Whatever you do, don’t drop this one on your foot.
