Agent: Joelle Delbourgo, Joelle Delbourgo Assoc. Winters comes a mind-bending novel set in a world governed by absolute truth, where lies are as dangerous as murder.In a strange alternate society that values law and truth above all else, Laszlo Ratesic is a nineteen-year veteran of the Speculative Service. Winters’s exploration into the nature of truth will grip many readers, but this ambitious novel misses the mark. From award-winning, New York Times bestselling novelist Ben H. Some of the societal elements seem contrived, such as how every citizen must archive every single life event in a journal, and the reveal at the end is too nebulous to be completely effective. While the story, in which every second of the populace’s lives is meticulously recorded, is tonally comparable to Orwell’s 1984, the thematic impact simply isn’t there.

The seemingly accidental fatality is filled with anomalies, which leads Ratesic and the young female officer he’s mentoring to uncover a grand-scale conspiracy with staggering implications. Laszlo Ratesic, a veteran police officer whose innate ability to know when someone is lying helps him piece together unsolved crimes, investigates the death of a construction worker who fell off of a roof during a job. And when those in control of the facts twist them for nefarious means, the Speculators are the only ones with the power to fight back.' - Amazon.This disappointing postapocalyptic thriller from Edgar winner Winters ( Underground Airlines) boasts an irresistible setup: in the near future, California is a sovereign state governed by absolute truth, and telling a lie can result in jail time or worse. To monitor, verify, and enforce the truth requires a veritable panopticon of surveillance and recording. But the Golden State is less a paradise than its name might suggest. In its service, he is one of the few individuals permitted to harbor untruths, to 'speculate' on what might have happened. In the Golden State, knowingly contradicting the truth is the greatest crime-and stopping those crimes is Laz's job. He lives in the Golden State, a nation standing where California once did, a place where like-minded Americans retreated after the erosion of truth and the spread of lies made public life and governance impossible. 'In a strange alternate society that values law and truth above all else, Laszlo Ratesic is a nineteen-year veteran of the Speculative Service. A veteran of the Speculative Service in an alternate-world California where the law and truth are valued above all else uses his rare authority to question the facts when truth enforcement is manipulated for corrupt purposes.

Golden state by ben h winters