The third in Jason Pargin's satirical cyber-punk novels, this entry in the series finds Zoey settling more and more into her role as the head of her late father's criminal empire, only to have to delve deeper into an aspect of the underworld more vile and cutthroat than all the sex work and drug trafficking combined: Politics. With Tabula Ra$a's first ever mayoral election coming up it's a bitter and tight race between the far right "Law and Order" candidate Leonidas Damon, who promises to bring brutal order and civility to the city at any cost (as well as throw Zoey and the Suits in prison) and the Suits' sometimes ally Megaboss Alonzo, who's main campaign promise is that he'll give you 20 bucks if you can prove you voted for him.
All the while Zoey and the Suits are trying to organize the massive annual Catharsis Music Festival and the ensuing post-festival riot (yes they organize both), an important event the city needs to release steam, but a series of high-profile abductions and supposed murders of a trio of Zoey sex-worker employees seems ready to tip the festival, the election, and the whole city into complete chaos. Not to mention the dumbass with the Wizard hat and cowboy outfit...
Provides examples of:
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The story focuses on the mayoral election between Megaboss Alonzo, part of Tabula Ra$a's established power structure whose campaign promises maintenance of the status quo, vs Damon, a far right authoritarian whose campaign is described as the first step on a road to a fascist presidency, cares far less about preventing crime than on inflicting harm on the "bad guys", and who promotes a conspiracy theory that the elites of the city are kidnapping children to sell their meat in restaurants.
- "Call him a racist, a sexist, a fascist, those words don't mean anything to his supporters. But the one thing he can't be is a loser."
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- Killed Mid-Sentence: Budd is shockingly killed right as he was beginning to formulate a plan for the final leg of the book
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: Harmonia is introduced at the start of the book as just another Raiden-enhanced nut-job who ends up getting glued to a cow, only to return near the end of the book full of enough resolve to try and kill the Suits via a suicide bombing that manages to actually kill Budd
- Nominated as a Prank: Tabula Ra$a being the city that it is the final election is dominated by a number of joke write-in candidates, including Bandito, a popular raccoon that died over the course of the book, multiple misspellings of Aviv's name, Aviv's flying severed penis, and at least a few seemingly genuine ones for Zoey, which annoys her to no end.
- Repetitive Name: Rex Wrexx, though there's a different inflection. His last name is probably supposed to be pronounced like the word Wrecks.
- The Stoic: Wu, throughout, but especially when he calmly and efficiently explains the situation to Zoey whilst trapped in the wreckage of a bomb blast with a refrigerator crushing his legs.
