Neal Stephenson’s eco-thriller Zodiac features Sangamon Taylor, a fresh Age group Sam Spade who sports a moist suit instead of a trench coat and prefers Jolt in the may to Scotch for the rocks. He is aware of chemical sludge just how he knows about bad – all too intimately. And the harmful trail he comes after leads to some high and foul places.

Before long, Taylor’s house is bombed, his every move followed, he’s adopted simply by reservation Indians, moves onto the FBI’s most wanted list, accocunts for along with his girlfriend, and plays a starring role in the near-assassination of the presidential candidate. Closing the case using his burnout roomate, his tofu-eating comrades, three major networks, and a variety of unconventional weaponry, Sangamon Taylor pulls from the most startling caper in Boston Harbor since the Tea Party.

As he navigates this ecological thriller with hardboiled wit and the biggest outboard engine he will get his hands on, Taylor reveals himself among the last from the white-hatted great guys in a very toxic world.