1) Broken Angels, by Richard Morgan

Morgan’s second novel about far-future mercenary Takeshi Kovacs, here caught up in a struggle for control of the artifacts of a lost alien race in the middle of an ideological rebellion. The plot is straight out of pulps (as is the extreme violence), but Morgan’s tight and sexy prose keeps you reading. Did I pick up a nod towards Douglas Adams, where Kovacs responds to one of his colleagues telling him they are safe, “Must be a new definition of the word”? Fun stuff, and I’ll get the next in the series.