Better Than Chocolate follows police inspector Noah Dane, a crusty, womanizing, middle-aged, San Francisco cop in a future several decades away, as he tries to find out who offed his partner. He is paired with celubrudroid Marilyn Monroe, an android reprogrammed to be a police detective, whom he finds tantalizing and infuriating. He and Monroe investigate a series of seemingly unrelated murders linked together by bat guano and a bikeroo's tatoo. (Bikers are bad guys still, but they ride bicycles in this future era.) Interwoven into Dane's investigation is celebrity talk show host Chastity Blume and her search for her past.

Providing some additional confusion is Dane's authority-challenging teenage daughter who comes to live with him, and a national growing obsession with a new virtual reality program that's reputed to be "better than chocolate."

Golden's Better Than Chocolate does what all good science fiction should do. It looks at humanity and civilization. Better Than Chocolate is an amusing look at sexuality in modern society as well as the interface of technology with everyday life.

This book was top-notch. I thoroughly enjoyed the crime drama with its old-style feel injected into a futuristic world. The characters, no matter how outlandish, were realistic and fun to know. Even droids had humanity. It was the natural way Golden writes about technology as part of the fabric of this future time that I found fascinating. His slang for the time was interesting and seemed a natural progression of some of the slang used today. Also, his social commentary was spot on and allowed me to look at the social mores of my own time a little more closely.

Bruce Golden, well done! Keep the speculative fiction coming. I can't wait for more!