And just like that, I've finished the last Raymond Electromatic book. I feel a bit sad now, though there's no doubt I'll come back: it's a fun idea, and Christopher does a good job at a pastiche of Chandler's style. I was quicker to the final answer here than Raymond, in several ways, but that only makes sense: he's limited by a 24-hour memory, allowing Christopher to sprinkle in clues and deductions by him that he can't remember, but which the reader can.

It could feel just annoying and obvious when Raymond finally arrives at the answer, but things speed along quickly enough -- Raymond is aware of the limitations of his memory, so sometimes he'll go along with something that's happening in a way that both makes sense for the character and his limitations and prevents the reader from hopping up and down with frustration.

This last book brings a few things together and gives us some much-needed answers, in a way that's pretty satisfying, while maintaining that pastiche feel and being a pretty slick read. For me at least, it brings it home triumphantly.

Raymond Electromatic is an assassin. An assassin posing as a private gumshoe. Raymond Electromatic is also a robot. And not just any robot ... he is the last robot since the Department of Robot Labor (DORL) saw to the end of robot production. Ray Electromatic is very good at his job but he has one serious flaw. His internal memory tape only provides enough memory for twenty-four hours. For anything beyond that he relies on his provider/boss, Ada to keep him in the know and on track with his assignments. Ada is a computer. A desktop computer that sits in the office of the Electromatic Detective Agency.
In I Only Killed Him Once, the detective office is visited by a mysterious man dressed in black who comes to issue a warning that Ray and Ada are in danger. Ray has the distinct impression that he has seen this man before but he can't remember why or when (24 hour memory, remember). When he asks about it, Ada tells him to forget about it, which is unlike her. Not long after, when Ray comes to the office again because Ada isn't responding to him, he discovers that the agency office has been raided and Ada is gone. It appears as though she may have been dismantled by DORL.
Raymond now has only twenty-four hours of memory tape to find Ada, uncover the identity of the man in black, and determine how the dark stranger fit in to Ada's disappearance.
I've really come to enjoy the Raymond Electromatic mysteries. They are ripping good yarns! This book made me smile with the very first sentence: "They say you should never start with the weather, but look, it was a dark and stormy night and I don't care who knows it." And I smiled the rest of the way through.
Author Adam Christopher puts together a very nice mystery, with a few surprises along the way and does it with this very unique world he has created - a 1960's alternate era with a very futuristic AI computer and robot acting like 1950's noir detectives. Does that sound like fun? It is! But it's more than just fun because the mystery itself is worth exploring.
It makes me sad, however, to read that this is likely the last book in the series. I could read a new Raymond Electromatic Mystery once a year for a very long time if they were made available. But since they likely won't be, you should be sure to pick up your copy now.
Looking for a good book? I Only Killed Him Once by Adam Christopher is the last (?) book in the Raymond Electromatic Mystery series and it is a fun science fiction mystery that you can easily enjoy.
I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

As the final novel in the Ray Electromatic series, I ONLY KILLED HIM ONCE goes out with a bang. Our favourite robot assassin is on the case and wouldn’t you know it, his memory is on the fritz. I ONLY KILLED HIM ONCE tackles the plot threads of Ray’s creation, his friendship with Ada, and his faulty memory. In the other novels, Ray is looking for his mark and searching for missing pieces of his day. In this novel, Ray spends most of the plot trying to orient himself. It keeps Ray reacting and investigating, but never truly puts him on the offensive.

In the previous novels, it was easy to mistrust Ada. When the reader knows more than the protagonist, it’s difficult to root for the person, or robot, in charge of Ray’s memory tapes. I really wished that the author had leaned into this deceit and power imbalance. The repeat customer, with an endless supply of black hats, was an interesting mystery but, when solved, never dealt with the implications. With all the resources and money that Ray’s enemies seem to possess, it’s startling that they hid so long in the shadows.

As always the memory loops are the real charm of the novel, as Ray restarts every day the same way. It’s a great joke that always pays off. I ONLY KILLED HIM ONCE was a fun end to the series but I couldn’t help wishing for more a more interesting end for Ray. Weird clients, bad memory, and half-truths are all part of the robot assassin's normal day, I would have loved to see this taken to the extreme.

Well this was a lot of fun! Ray Electromatic is a robot detective-turned-gun-for-hire. Unfortunately for Ray, he lives in an alternate 1960s universe which means that some of his technology is not terribly advanced. With the exception of some hardwired memories, Ray relies on a 24-hour reel of memory tape. This means that each day he starts with a relatively clean slate.

Imagine an old-fashioned, not-nearly-so-misanthropic Murderbot thrown into the movie Memento. Knowing that he can only trust Ada, his computerized boss, Ray "lives" a life carrying out the jobs she hands him. When a tall man in a dark hat gives Ray a mysterious warning, Ray must try to solve the most important mystery of his career and figure out who wants to take him out before he gets got.

Overall, I really enjoyed this read and I'm planning on getting to the other books in the series as soon as I can. I hadn't realized this was the third (and final) instalment in the series until after I'd started reading, but I definitely didn't feel like I was missing anything. This definitely did get a bit repetitive at certain points -- there's only so many times you need to be told that the guy doesn't remember stuff from the day before, but for the most part that did not prevent me from enjoying the story.

I love everything about Adam Christopher's books. Their settings are relatable but different enough that we don't feel we've read it before. Ray Electromatic is the best PI/hit man LA has to offer. The book is all about the mystery/noir feel of the streets Ray is walking and the mysteries he's solving. It's not only his clients that have some questions for him. The difficulties of his memory loss are what make him stand out as an interesting character to follow. The only thing I disliked about this book was that it will be the last one.

Once again I find myself enjoying this series. I actually raced through book 1.5 and book 2 to get to this one. It blurs together for me at the moment. I'm glad it did because all three feel like three episodes of my favorite show. I don't see any reason to not keep reading more stories in this series.

Today, July 10, 2018, marks the release of I Only Killed Him Once by Adam Christopher, the third and final novel in the Ray Electromatic Mysteries series. This is a great science fiction noir mystery series featuring the very last robot in operation working as a hit man using the cover of a private detective when unwanted eyes begin to pry.

If interested, you can find our reviews for the first book in the series here and the second book here.

In this novel Ray Electromatic wakes up with a fresh reel of tape for 24 hours of new memory and a man in a black hat in the front room. The man feels familiar, even if Ray can’t remember him. He comes with a warning, not a job. If something’s amiss Ada, the supercomputer who runs things, isn’t talking. Things quickly go for bad to worse as Ray’s memory ticks down to zero.

This was a great conclusion to the Ray Electromatic Mysteries series. Ray is just as fantastic a character as always. His voice is unique, and he a genuinely fun character to follow on adventures. This particular case proves to be a difficult one as things quickly spiral beyond Ray’s control.

Ada is missing for a good portion of the novel. This means that Ray is truly on his own. The well timed phone calls from Ada are gone. Details to the hit Ray’s supposed to be carrying out are largely missing. Ray is forced to figure things out completely on his own, going back to earlier days when he worked as a PI. This is complicated due to limited memory space. If he knew more details yesterday it was all wiped when a new reel was installed during the night.

All loose ends are wrapped up in this third novel. Questions that have lingered from book one are finally addressed. We get more information as to Ray’s creation and the various robotics divisions encountered in the previous two novels.

Now, I don’t want to say too much about this novel. The books in this series are on the shorter side of the page count, and being the last of three novels room for accidental spoilers abounds. Needless to say, I very much enjoyed this series. Ray is a very welcome voice, a fun, hardboiled detective with a great personality. He’s very reminiscent of old noir film detectives, a feeling that permeates each book. the novels themselves are very atmospheric.

I must acknowledge the author’s sheer skill in making Ray and Ada so very likeable and relatable. They’re nothing more than a robot and a supercomputer, after all, even if they were patterned after humans. The way in which the virtual clink of a spoon in a ceramic cup can fill a silence and relay the feelings of a character is absolutely wonderful.

Though the Ray Electromatic Mysteries may be over, I am surely going to be seeking out more of Adam Christopher’s books. If you have not read any of the Ray Electromatic Mysteries, I would highly suggest picking up the first book of the series. Unlike some of the other mystery novels I’ve read, I do suggest reading these books in publication order. I Only Killed Him Once by Adam Christopher was a great conclusion to the series, and a book I highly recommend.

The concluding book in Adam Christopher’s LA Trilogy pulls together plot threads from the previous 2.75 books (one short story + one novella + two novels) and ties them up in a nice pretty bow. You could probably read this on its own and be able to follow the plot since there is plenty of recapping (too much in my opinion), but why would you deprive yourself of the joy of reading the full version of what came before?

This final tale of the robot PI-turned-hitman in alternate 1960’s Los Angeles contains some fun twists and turns. Admittedly, most of them you can see coming a mile away as they have been pretty heavily hinted at, but the big one caught me by surprise without feeling completely random. Not too many books do that to me, so that (plus some clever Raymond Chandler in-jokes) made this the highest rated book in the series for me. I don’t want to say much more than that so as to avoid spoilers.

Overall: I highly recommend this series! There are some areas where you have to suspend disbelief and go with the flow (but classic noir is always a bit hackish anyway), and you have to realize that the books are not as self-contained and stand-alone as classic noir fiction, but this series is just a lot of fun, and this book was a great wrap-up to it.

I Only Killed Him Once is the final instalment of Adam Christopher’s Ray Electromatic LA Trilogy. It’s a rare accomplishment: a series where each successive book is better than the last. This one is very special.

The series asks what if Raymond Chandler hadn’t dismissed science fiction as a load of nonsense gobbledygook, and instead set his noir mysteries in the near future - with his detective being a robot? The answer has Chandler’s dry wit in spades. And although these books lack Chandler’s trade-mark rugged poetry, instead they have a latent intelligence hiding behind the pulpiest of plots.

This book ties the series together nicely. There are plenty of references to the other stories and a big reveal about the series’ premise. We also get some genuine science fiction themes, which have otherwise been missing in the rest of the series. The use of an unreliable narrator pays off nicely, too.

There are nods to not only the original Philip Marlowe series, but even pop culture references to those works. For instance, at one point Michael Caine gets a subtle shout out, apparently for the sole reason that the title character in Get Carter is at one point seen reading a copy of Farewell, My Lovely. Even the novel’s first line is a mashup of two cracking Chandler lines.

If you love Raymond Chandler and SF, this book is an unexpected treat.

Thanks to the publisher, Tor, for providing a free digital ARC via Netgalley.

Say it ain’t so: the last Ray Electromatic novel. I don’t care if he is a robot—and a hit man—he’s a more appealing character than plenty of sci-fi or mystery protagonist.

Ray’s tape-based memory is only good for 24-hours, so he starts every day with no memory of what happened previously. He only has his deep programming to rely on, along with his instructions from his boss, Ada. Ray’s decided this just isn’t good enough, so he’s taken to making notes and stashing them places.

I can’t say much about the plot without spoilers, but let’s just say that (view spoiler). It’s a neat little thriller of a plot that would make an entertaining movie, and the writing is snappy.

Even though the Ray Electromatic books are described as a mashup of sci-fi and mystery, I’d say they’re more on the side of hardboiled mystery. The fact of Ray’s technology is only a big deal in a character way; it’s not like a tech-heavy space opera or anything. There are three Ray Electromatic novels, as well as a prequel short story and a novella. Here they are, in order:

Brisk Money (Ray Electromatic #0.5) [prequel short story]
Made to Kill (Ray Electromatic #1)
Standard Hollywood Depravity (Ray Electromatic #1.5) [novela]
Killing Is My Business (Ray Electromatic #2)
I Only Killed Him Once (Ray Electromatic #3)

I Only Killed Him Once by Adam Christopher this Alternate History book series about a robot detective in the 20th century is in the old detective style of a gritty gumshoe. But he has a prob, only 24 hrs worth of memory to "get his man", that could spell more than the usual trouble!

Few things go as well together as robots and pulp noir, as Adam Christopher has repeatedly proven with his Raymond Electromatic novels.  Christopher’s LA of the 1960s has all the glamour of Hollywood in its heyday and something extra - a robot detective turned hitman. Having a memory that starts from scratch every 24 hours is a weakness that just may turn out into a strength in Christopher’s newest novel - I Only Killed Him Once.


Ray rarely thinks twice about the assignments Ada gives him, but the man in black who shows up with an ominous warning has a hat that looks a lot like the one belonging to the man he killed the night before.  And a handsome man in a loud suit addresses Ray as a colleague in a particular endeavor. Something odd is going on, and all Ray has to go on are the cryptic notes he’s written himself. Ada and his memory tapes are missing and with his limited memory it’s only a matter of time before he shuts down permanently.


I Only Killed Him Once is decadent, guilty fun, exciting in the way that only pulp science fiction can.  Ray is a noir style pi with a unique twist. Christopher makes readers believe in Ray’s abilities as a hitman and pi while accepting that he is a robot with a limited memory.  Adam Christopher is a great writer, and I look forward to seeing what comes next.


5 / 5


I received a copy of I Only Killed Him Once from the publisher and Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.


— Crittermom

A worthy finale to this series answers a lot of questions with the benefit of sappy dialogue, great characters and wonderful 1960's Los Angeles atmosphere. The three books in this series should be read in order for the full impact but needless to say robots do save the world and don't save the world.
Just a real enjoyable, fun read.

Is it just me or are there a lot of sci-fi / detective crossovers these days? While there may be a lot of folks doing it, #IOnlyKilledHimOnce does it differently. It's a period piece set in 1965 so the tech level is Sean Connory-era James Bond. The book is a great read, too. I sailed right through and didn't want to put it down. The story is compelling and fun, with the only sour bit being the opening paragraph (you just can't say "it was a dark and stormy night", not even in jest). The real test of these cross-genre novels is whether it would still be sci-if the main character weren't a robot, if the other character weren't a computer, etc. This book passes that test.

I was surprised to see this wasn't the first Ray Electromatic book. In fact, the author says it's the last. Does this mean the plot twists are really series twists? The good news for me is, I get to go back and read those other titles now and find out. I usually reserve five stars for the sci-fi giants, but this book deserves it. #NetGalley

I Only Killed Him Once by Adam Christopher
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

So very, very enjoyable. Ray Electromatic is the Robot's Robot of the dirty streets of LA Noir. Sometimes he's a PI and sometimes he's a hit-robot-for-hire, but what makes him really stand out for me is his memory issues.

He runs on RAM. Poor Ray! Every day, he comes back with the same template as before. Useful when he needs plausible deniability, it's a real pain when the damn mysteries keep coming back. And back. And back. :)

This one has a lot of fantastic reveals and snappy dialogue. Ada, the master computer who gives Ray his jobs, is out of the picture for a lot of the tale and Ray has to figure out who the next Job is on his own! Who does he have to kill?

Oh, the nightmare!

Of course, I was just happy that it could have been anyone because this is classic Noir, but the final reveal was very satisfying. And very SF. :)

I'm LOVING this kind of genre-mashup. Big time. The best of both worlds.

And I'm probably going to have to scream for more of this. It can't end here. We have to have MORE. :)

Sladek, Wells, Martinez... we need more like this!!! :)

Adam Christopher returns to Tinseltown and his quirky memory-addled robot detective/hit man Raymond Electromatic in his third book of the LA Trilogy, I Only Killed Him Once. A new case has Ray going after a G-man, a man in black, an expressionless lawman… and once the deed is done, the memory lingers in the robot’s mixed up mind. What is it about this man? What is causing the electrical synapses to fire? Ray leaves himself notes to try to help his future self, and soon enough, people return to his life who may help or hinder his task to find the truth behind these triggered responses to his artificial intelligence. The next morning the book turns a sharp corner when the object of his seemingly successful hit visits him, alive… again.

The best of Christopher’s writing lies in the quick-witted and smart-aleck voice of his robot protagonist. The author’s 1960s alternative California is as interesting as ever, filled with descriptions of the cars, the diners, and the dialect of the times. There is just enough science in Christopher’s description of the mechanics of robotics to lend credibility, but not overwhelm the reader.

I Only Killed Him Once proves to be a satisfying ending to the narrative arc of the LA Trilogy. And although the book could adequately stand on its own, a reader would really want to start with the first book in the series, Make to Kill, to fully explore Christopher’s world. I mean, who wouldn’t want to spend a little more time with Ray?

Thank you to NetGalley, Macmillan-Tor Books, and Adam Christopher for the advanced copy for review.