The Garbage Man is a thought provoking addition to the new crop of techno-thrillers exploring the potential downsides of AI and extreme technical innovation on humanity.

In Tessa Pacelli’s new techno-thriller The Garbage Man, Kayla Mousavi wants nothing more than to be a high stakes poker player. Instead, fresh out of Harvard Business School, she finds herself working for tech superstar CEO Frederick Douglass Monahan at General Recycling, a high tech garbage company that uses bacteria to consume waste. The job is intense, all consuming, and morally shady. But Kayla’s got a father awaiting trial for insider trading, so she wants to stay on the right side of the law.

As a hot tech company, General Recycling offers all manner of perks to its employees, including Resilusio, a disturbingly real virtual reality metaverse that knows things about Kayla that she’s never voiced to anyone at the company.

Kayla discovers that Resilusio is illegally feeding on people’s digital waste to create a personalized, highly addictive, and sanity-destroying platform. Her discovery makes her an instant target and suddenly she is running for her life, from the safety of a private plane to stomach-turning New York City sewers and industrial juice factories.

Kayla is not unfazed by the danger she finds herself in – but she is so determined that she powers through all the frightening and uncomfortable situations she finds herself in to save the world from techno-villain Monahan and his creation Resulisio. She has some personal vengeance and hatred of her boss driving her too.

Overall, I found the premise very interesting, if a little confusing. This book is all page-turning action and Kayla doesn’t really slow down to contemplate anything other than her fear and revenge. As a result she felt a little distant as a character and I didn’t feel as invested in her as I would have liked. I also found the book to be a bit longer than it needed to be. Some of the action felt drawn out.

3.5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Tessa Pacelli for the ARC. All opinions are my own.