Today sees the release of J.S. Holloway’s cyberpunk novel Hard Traffic. The sequel to Hard Carry, the novel follows protagonist Felix on his next intense, high-stress courier run.

Synopsis – 

The job was simple: get the data, make the drop, collect the money, and get the hell out in one piece.

But when the pickup gets raided, the client dies, and the package turns out to be a girl who’s wanted by a violent revolutionary cell, Felix has to evade capture long enough to make it home before he’s caught by the cops or snatched by Ernst Volker, a vicious psychopath with murder on his mind, a chip on his shoulder, and fury to burn.

Can Felix survive this Hard Traffic, or will he end up as just another statistic?

Hard Traffic the second book in the Neu Berlin Arc, is a Cyberpunk Thriller that drops you in it and then just keeps on going.

The first novel in the Neu Berlin arc, Hard Carry, was quick and dirty, cyberpunk the hard way, just how we like it. The plot forced Felix to be constantly on the run, moving ever forward, which kept a novel already on the short side clipping along at a blistering pace. Hard Traffic follows in the tradition, opening in transit, and never slowing down for very long. Felix is offered a quote unquote simple job. Despite his cynicism, he agrees, but things smell funny from the very off. He has a rail impacted in his arm for the purpose of carrying data, but on this occasion, the ‘data’ he is to courier is being carried by someone else, who he needs to escort.

As with Felix’s previous adventure, it turns out there’s more than one interested party, and it seems friends who were friends might now be enemies. This is one of the strengths of the Neu Berlin arc – there are always multiple parties involved, and each has their own motivations, meaning things are never just black and white. There is a lot of murk in Felix’s world, which keeps him, as the protagonist, and us, as the reader, guessing the whole time.

In Hard Carry, we were introduced to Felix as a hard boiled, cynical loner. By the end of that story, he was not quite as alone as he started, but in this second story, we get to see a slightly softer side to him, some clear evidence that he has a kind heart. When the job starts to go almost immediately south, he has the opportunity to step away, to remove himself from the situation, and self preserve. He chooses not to do so, and this is an important step in his character development. He doesn’t stick to the task for financial reasons, he does it because he is looking out for someone else’s well-being.

And what of his travel companion, who he vows to keep safe and see through to her destination? The ‘twist’ isn’t a shock when it comes, and the nature of this item that he is transporting around isn’t necessarily an original concept. But it works, because as with Felix, there is a personal journey playing out. The young girl has a lot of growing up to do over the course of the story, and it is handled well, perfectly measured, so by the climax nothing seems unbelievable, or unearned.

Topping Hard Carry was going to be difficult, and it must have been tempting to just ramp up the action, make the stakes higher, the situation more extreme. What author J.S. Holloway has very smartly done, though, is raise the stakes for Felix by removing another element of control. Where in the previous story he only needed to worry about himself, this time he is forced to act as protector. This takes the protagonist firmly out of his comfort zone, adding an additional dimension to his struggles. 

Hard Traffic is the 2nd book of the Neu Berlin arc, and author J. S. Holloway is already at work on the next book in the series, Hard Exit. Hard Traffic is available now in ebook, paperback, and hardback formats.

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