Suburban Dicks was on my TBR pile for over a year, the sequel will be on the TBR for considerably less time. This is the author's debut but he has a long writing career in the comics industry, particularly famous for his work featuring Marvel's X-Men, including his co-creation of Deadpool. In a complete departure of style (except for the sarcasm), Niceza has turned his hand to the 'odd partnership solving a crime' genre and hit it out of the park. With a strong location feel and the aforementioned sarcasm, my first thoughts were this book was giving Evanovich vibes, but incredibly strong characterization soon showed this to be a superior mystery.
The lead was a frustrated housewife, pregnant with her 5 child, stumbling on to the crime scene, instincts and training make her notice many things the police officers on scene have failed to identify. She was going to be a famous FBI profiler, until motherhood got in the way. Her sidekick was briefly a famous journalist, but he made mistakes and become a famous disgraced journalist.
Together, and apart, this mismatched pair are going to solve a recent murder that has ties to a fifty year old crime that no one know about.
Highly recommended.

It is quite bizarre to say I was caught chortling out loud by the family , as I was reading this fantastic debut novel, especially when it starts with the worst day of gas station attendant , Satkunanathan's, life, ever.

He is dead, probably murdered, and the crime scene , where he lies, covered with evidence which might convict his killer?

Well that has been trampled over by two new recruits to the West Windsor PD , who cannot even manage to string the police tape properly. It  is made even worse by the arrival of a heavily pregnant woman, accompanied by a child who is in desperate need of a toilet.

Talk about pissing on your chips, this kid pisses all over the crime scene!
After a thorough lecture on protecting the integrity of a crime scene, this apparent suburban mother with her care full of screaming kids is soon on its way, leaving Officer Michele Wu and Niket Patel standing in her dust, wondering who is getting to be bollocked most loudly by their boss.

Tirns out this is no lady , this is Andie Abelman, fast tracked criminal justice junior who swapped legal briefs for maternity pants, academia for suburbia and ambition for, well, settling.

She and her four, soon to be five, children , race the day until husband, and father, Jeff, erstwhile businessman now embarrassed and humiliated after losing a butt load of other people's money and riding the commuter train to work every day, comes home.

But...a fine instinct for crime and crime solving cannot be squashed down forever, and the tingling need to offer her help to the police dept who clearly have no real idea what is going on, develops into a crescendo.

On the other side of town is Kenny Lee, reporter in need of a story, who, picking up the possible not quite correct info that Satkunanathan *might* have been selling drugs, dives deep into this story, finding things he very much wishes he had left where he found them.

Both Kenny and Andie are both as keen as each other to work out just what is going on, defying expectation that as an expectant mum, Andie should sit on the sidelines of her life, and as a reporter, Kenny should just stick to less inflamatory stories. His Pulitzer prize winning days are in the tailights of his career.

They both experience prejudice,in and out of the work arena, and as a result, are keenly aware of its presence, they bring in FBI contact Ramon to help things along in the discovering the truth stakes. In so doing, the pull the plastic wrap off the settees of the middle class social climbers, and put their feet up on the arms. And possibly stain the covers a bit.

In stepping out of their assigned societal roles, they find their pateince with idiots waning, find their drive and themselves again, and I was so very happy not only to be finding a book as hilarious as this one, but also a story with heart, a key central message and , best of all, a sequel.

“Time changed our prejudices, but it didn’t change the fact that we were prejudiced.”

Suberbia is not for me, it seems. Too much prejudice. Plus, I didn't like the humour, nor the characters.

So this book starts with a crime scene. Rookie cops have been called out to a shooting at a petrol station and are doing a very bad job at securing the area and not walking all over the evidence. Along come our protagonist Andrea, a heavily pregnant mother of four very young children, her mum-mobile bouncing onto the forecourt, screaming kids in the back with a toddler in her arms , urine pouring all over the scene.
They don't know she was a young prodigy who was just about to be scooped up by the FBI profiling unit while doing her degree until she became pregnant,and she's seeing everything. She's pretty much figured out who commited the murder during the couple of minutes it took for her youngest to finish her wee.

I didn't enjoy this book at first. It seemed dated with its over use of stereotypes of different cultureS and upbringings. I'm still not sure if it was written that way to show the narrowminded-ness of suburban white families. Sort of using a stereotype to describe the whole of the indian-american homeowners didn't sit well for me.
At the end of the book, I did find out that Fabian Nicieza, is the writer of Deadpool, so it's similar humour to that with less swearing, so maybe the mild racism (IMO) is tongue-in-cheek?
But that aside, I can see this being quite a good TVshow/movie. The humour and wit in the writing was brilliant and I did think that our main character was very well done. But please, I hope if there's another book, she sacks off Jeff. He's a very insecure misogynist. Definitely been keeping his wife pregnant as a way to control her. Didn't like him, send him on his way, Fabian!
Kenny on the other hand was the perfect slimeball. I could just imagine him in stain covered clothes, smelling of last night's take out and cigarettes. So well done.
The Cellulitists, the housewife/soccer mum gang were fantastic and wouldve liked to see more of them in sleuth-mode.
Such a fun book, bit of a grown up Scooby Doo or Nancy Drew or something if you want a bit of silliness in you mystery novels.

Suburban Dicks is a compelling, satirical and insightful crime debut from the co-creator of Deadpool featuring two unlikely and unforgettable amateur sleuths. When gas station attendant Satkunananthan Sasmal is shot at point-blank range while pumping gas for motorists at a garage in the small town of West Windsor, New Jersey, Andrea "Andie" Stern, a mother of four currently pregnant with her fifth child who was once predicted to become a prominent FBI Criminal Profiler and once responsible for netting a vicious serial killer before unexpectedly conceiving and giving up her dreams to become an attentive full-time mum is the first on the scene. She had stopped to find a bathroom for her kids to relieve themselves when she discovered the body. Local police believe it's a botched armed robbery but Andie needs only one glance at the crime scene to see that it was clearly a cold-blooded execution. The inconsistencies are glaringly obvious in the police work, but you can be willingly blind to them if you're a copper just looking to close a case. For Andie, though, it's more about justice so she decides to begin an investigation herself and vows to find the killer using her expert analytical skills and acute perceptiveness.

Meanwhile, disgraced newspaper investigative reporter Kenneth Lee is in the process of trying to resurrect his stalled career with a story uncovering the three-decades-old murder that occurred in the West Windsor–Plainsboro area and the perpetrator responsible for it. Kenny and Andrea soon team up and they discover that the 30-year-old case seemingly has connections to the recent racially motivated shooting. Can they solve it? This is a compulsive and richly entertaining crime thriller and an investigation uncovering the creeping darkness of American suburbia. Full of wicked black humour, but razor-sharp beneath the laughs, Suburban Dicks casts a scathing eye over modern-day America. It’s a one-of-a-kind mystery that will charm, harrow and grip the reader to the final pages, is predicated on a thematic foundation and is actually about the fears we have of changing cultures in our towns: fear of immigrants and the fear of loss of control and power. A quirky, raucously entertaining and topical thriller touching on cultural and racial diversity, institutional racism, the culture of white supremacy, toxic masculinity and the self-aggrandizing role of the media. Highly recommended.

Debut from the co-creator of Deadpool, Suburban Dicks follows Andie Stern, a budding FBI profiler, who resentfully gave up her career for the life of a housewife. One day, Andie stumbles across a murder scene and the local cops are clueless. She soon crosses paths with disgraced local journalist Kenny Lee, who also has everything to prove in solving the case. Andie and Kenny join forces and uncover simmering racial tensions and a decades-old conspiracy…

I found this a slow burner of a murder mystery and although I found it slightly predictable in the direction it was heading, it was still a really fun, well written read which is why I’ve rated it so highly. The writing is sharp and witty and although not completely a comedy, there are still plenty moments that’ll have you laughing out loud.

I love good, well rounded characters which this has in abundance, including the main character Andie. She’s a really relatable character who is bored and frustrated with her choices and resulting mundane life, she gave up a chance with the true love of her life and a future career as an FBI criminal profiler to become a housewife (albeit not fully her choice in doing so). She loves her kids but wants to strangle them at the same time and for a parent juggling four kids, one on the way and a husband who she hates - I’m not surprised at her emotions! She felt real and authentic which added to the story. Kenny is also an interesting character who is a self-described asshole who has recently fallen from Grace and is looking for that one story that’ll set him back up at the top.

There was a fair bit of racist dialogue when highlighting the bigotry, prejudices and years long injustices that the non-white communities have had to put up with over the years. I felt Suburban Dicks was a great portrayal of white privilege and the delicate cis white male ego that comes with that privilege. This helped add a fresh twist on your classic murder mystery and is a story that can be enjoyed by many different readers.

Suburban Dicks is out now! And thank you very much to NetGalley UK and Titan Books who I received this ARC from.

I loved everything about this book, the writing style, the storyline and it’s characters, a real page turner that you won’t want to put down!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

"Time changed our prejudices but didn't change the fact that we were prejudiced"
There's so much to love about this book; it's a sharply observed social commentary, it's well paced, there's a great "whodunnit" and it's got some genuine laugh out loud moments. The characters were brilliant, I especially loved Ken; he was the perfect mix of good guy looking for redemption whilst being a bit of a dick (in both senses of the word).
Written by one of the Deadpool creators,and already with a TV deal in the offing, I'm really hoping for great things from this.

The quest for “different” has been successful again with this amusing, and really down to earth story which is neither a thriller nor a cosy. But it is a very entertaining murder mystery.

Andrea Stern, heavily pregnant with her fifth child, is the first witness (apart from her 4 other children) at the scene of a shooting death at a gas station. She has stopped there because her youngest needed the bathroom. Two patrol officers are at the scene doing everything wrong and Andrea has no hesitation in telling them exactly that. Andrea is whip smart and, before falling pregnant with her first child (accidentally I would imagine), she was blitzing a criminology degree and was accepted as a cadet profiler with the FBI. She had also managed to identify the perpetrator of a series of brutal killings. Now she is a housewife and mother who is chaffing at the constraints on her life.

Kenny Lee is a self confessed scumbag journalist whose career started with a bang and has gone downhill steadily since then. The police are peddling the drug deal or robbery gone wrong angle for the murder but Andrea knows that is rubbish. Kenny tries to verify the drug angle but comes up empty because there is nothing there. These two unlikely accomplices team up to work together to solve the murder. Along the way they get more than they bargained for.

The dialogue in this book is very crisp and full of acerbic humour. Andrea herself is a wonderful character. She loves her children but kind of hates her life as it suppresses her keen intellect as a necessity of mothering four young children with a fifth on the way. She lumbers her way through a subversive investigation and plots out, with Kenny, the best way to force a chink in the armour of police and administrative solidarity. She also gets the Indian community on board and co-opts her friends for surveillance duty!

She soon has a motive for the murder but that is only half the story. Along the way she and Kenny, along with her first love, Ramon from the FBI, uncover a decades old crime that is still being covered up today. It all comes down to that ugly old trait of racism and the entitlement of the white male ruling class. This was a very different take on the old murder mystery story and I really appreciated that and enjoyed the book immensely. While it was written in a comedic way it was no comedy as there were some very serious issues in play. I think this book would appeal to a wide variety of readers. You just have to accept a view of motherhood that is not very saintly to enjoy it. I could certainly relate. I love my children to bits but there were times.... I received an advance copy for free from Netgalley and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Makes you grin and think in equal measure. The 2 central characters are neither stock nor unconvincingly off kilter but instead are very plausible and human whilst definitely quirky. A clever mystery with roots in the past but demonstrates that attitudes to anyone not falling into the same tribe of either birth or looks still remain an issue. Andrea is a force of nature with an excellent brain that she is delighted to flex, her reintroduction to the working world is a triumph as is her co-option of a variety of other mums. Kenneth meanwhile is a disaster as a human being whilst excellent as a foil and partner. Thank you to Titan Books nd Netgalley for providing me with a free ARC that gave me a really good read and introduced me to a new favourite author.