OK this is weird one - I got this from Netgalley in 2016, and since found out that it was written probably around 2008 and set in 2013 - which already didn't bode well for a sci-fi literary thriller.
I found this pretty dense and confusing - in my opinion the author tried to pull from too many genres - dystopian, organised crime, thriller, procedural, sci-fi and so on. Not for me sadly, although I thought the characters were well realised and the setting was depressingly believable.

<B>Pearl Ruled</b> at 30%; the chapter's entitled "In the Shadow of the Titty Bar"

Real Rating: 2.5* of five, rounded down

At 18%, Renny (our narrator) says:
<blockquote>The best/worst news is that Tony Quinones will be back from Cannes in time to
be our stylist. Tony Q did the costumes for <I>The Snake</i>, a drama about a love triangle of gay sewage workers in Manila that's this year's odds-on favorite for the Palme d'Or. Tony is the kind of gay caricature who gives other gays a bad name (though he's always good for a few Specials for himself and his so-called <I>Queue-terie</i>.)</blockquote>
"Specials" are the narrator's other-career products: Drugs. My. How very edgy of the author, no?
Then, at 30%, Renny (our narrator) says:
<blockquote>She softly aligns her fingernails in perfect formation along my scrotal seam and arcs the tip of her tongue unerringly into my urethra.

My God, this girl.</blockquote>
And I realized how very much has changed since I downloaded this book in 2016; and how much MORE has changed since it was first written, and published by Bloomsbury, in 2008.

And I am so, so glad it has. I hate the homophobia; I hate the sexism (I excerpted the least condescending one I could I find); I hate the endlessly mindlessly habituated into lazy writers' heads use of New York City as dystopia-in-waiting. Use Birmingham, or Wichita, or Salt Lake City for a change.

Frenetic life of an artist and drug dealer of the future. Renny Taylor is a photographer trying to make the lows more bearable by selling drugs, through the medium of Taxicabs. Detective Sixto Santiago, looking to rise up in Law Enforment, is on the case and when the two character cross paths - the drama unfolds like a multi-car pile up. Rivers of Gold is a good read; the Author Adam Dunn does well in creating dystopian fiction with intriguing characters.

The writing style turned me off and I couldn't get into the novel.

Okay, hold on tight. NYC 2013. Man in a taxi thinking about money and sex. My first impression of Renny was that he was a fat, boring version of Patrick Bateman from American Psycho travelling through an NYC that seemed recognizable to me. But wait, it’s meant to be a dystopian future version of NYC after some huge financial crash and an over running of drugs… It’s always tough when fiction falls short of reality.Now there is a storyline and once you get into it, it is good but it’s hard to get past the layers of (to a woman) boring man-stuff. There’s a fashion in women-centric novels at the moment for including the recipes of the foods the characters eat, and in Rivers of Gold, there is so much talk of cocktails that I felt it was just the same need being fulfilled but differently. The sex talk is grim and sounds like it’s coming out of a middle aged, semi-alcoholic man who is partial to botox, as in ‘no thanks, I’m late for a spin class’. But I can imagine plenty of guys really love those scene. Plus Renny gives girls head, so that make him a modern-thinking man, right?

But enough of the man bashing, because Rivers of Gold is a good book. Dunn has some great ideas and thoughts, which translate well on paper as the thoughts and ideas of his characters. He can also write well and in this age of self-publishing, that has to be recognized.