It's election time in New Babylon, and President Maggie Delgado is running for re-election but is threatened by the charismatic populist Ted Rust. Newly appointed City Commissioner Georg Ratner is given the priority task to fight the recent invasion of Synth in the streets of the capital, a powerful hallucinogen drug with a mysterious origin. When his old colleague asks him for help on another case and gets murdered, things become more and more complicated, and his official neutrality becomes a burden in the political intrigue he his gradually sucked into. Supported by Laura, his trustful life partner and the Egyptian goddess Nut, Ratner decides to fight for what he believes in, no matter the cost.
Industry Reviews
"While politicians on the right spew hate, those on the left are the puppets of insidious corporations, and together they uphold a system that murders artists and rebels. But an honest whiskey-sipping cop shines a light on that which might offer a small dose of redemption: Punk rock, trade unions, and slow-burning romantic love. Seb Doubinsky's The Invisible is a wry and tender novel, one that breathes fresh air into the tones of old-school noir, providing a balm for our absurd, terrifying times." Hirsh Sawhney, author of South Haven
"The author's well-paced story-telling drew me deep into the dystopian city-state of New Babylon, a world which, with its political corruption, power struggles, economic uncertainty and the threat from a powerful new drug felt all too recognisably topical!" Linda Hepworth, NB Magazine
"In Seb Doubinsky's dystopian novel The Invisible , politics are the only game in town Brief, staccato chapters sparkle with surprising twists Though Georg finally realizes that he's just another bear in the circus, he is content with his role. In the stark novel, life is smothered by a mutually parasitic culture." Foreword Reviews
"Beneath its neo-noir plot about mysterious murders during a fraught presidential election, this sly and subversive page-turner offers radical ideas about the unseen workings of art, the politics of perception, and the ways subcultures can shift the social fabric in these perilous times." Jeff Jackson, author of Destroy All Monsters
"Just as The Big Sleep is guided by the imagery of the Grail myth, Seb Doubinsky's smoky, Chandleresque mystery follows a profane tarot into murder and heavy drugs, New Babylon's dark politics, and the Egyptian occult. Doubinsky's a grand master of terse episodes, tight rooms and close dialogue. His clean style and terrific sense of pacing are in the finest traditions of noir. Georg Ratner is part Bogart, and part something like Mad Men's Don Draper with punk rock tastes, a hardboiled investigator falling into mysticism, and a Faustian bargain. Add a wicked sense of irony to all this weird beauty, and you have a killer novel." James Reich, author of the Song My Enemies Sing
"Sebastian Doubinsky's The Invisible is dystopian fiction at its most "mythical," to paraphrase Georg Ratner, City Commissioner of New Babylon, who is trying to solve his ex-partner's murder and discover the source of a new reality-altering drug called Synth. Alternately melancholic and absurdist, The Invisible is both dire and whimsical, paranoid as early Thomas Pynchon, psychedelic as P.K. Dick and as full of wonder as anything by J.G. Ballard." J.S. Breukelaar, author of Aletheia and Collision: Stories
"Doubinsky's Dystopian detective novel reveals our greatest weapon against tyranny; at once gripping, beautiful, and meditative. A must read." Vincenzo Bilof, author of The Violators, Dark Rising and The Profane
