Decoherent

Detective second grade Alex Dorn was already having a bad day when he responded to a shooting where everyone – including a fellow police officer – is dead. But he has an edge, a secret. Alex has the peculiar ability to form anchors in quantum space-time and return to that particular place and time should things go awry, which, in police work, happens more than you’d think.

After the shooting, Alex is seconded to an FBI task force. They are hunting a serial suspect designated “Peter Perfect.” He earned that name because he never makes a mistake. Ever. Alex slowly comes to realize that the suspect must possess a talent similar to his own. But how? Who is he? Alex wasn’t prepared for the truth or that he would soon have to fight for his life and everything that makes his life worth living.

Decoherent rocks! Recommended. A fine debut novel.
-- John Shirley, author of Stormland

Steve Holley’s Decoherent is forged like a Masamune katana, layers of steel folded one into another until, deliberate and with utmost purpose, the final, fatal form is revealed. The work is a laminate of disparate literary steels—martial arts meditation; quantum physics pontification; hard-boiled sci-fi detective case—welded together and honed to an eerie sharpness. Every layer is described in perfect clarity, explained with a professorial surety that manages to impart to even the most ignorant reader a sense of familiarity with everything from the practiced specificity of Goju Ryu karate to the wanton tedium of internal police politics. Propelled by Holley’s masterful interweaving of genres, the weather-beaten Florida cop story is transformed into something that transcends time and place; like a samurai side-stepping through the multiverse, the novel seethes with a focused energy that translates into an immutable, respectfully understated but still weapons-grade power.
-- Paul d. Miller, author of Albrecht Drue, ghostpuncher.

Steve Holley’s first novel, Decoherent, is a winner. This is a police procedural that nails the cop-shop dead-on, has martial arts out the wazoo, interesting characters, and a quantum quirk that adds just enough pepper to heat it nicely. Well- written, and a page-turner, and there is even a dog. Go for it.
-- Steve Perry, New York Times Selling Author of The Man Who Never Missed

Decoherent has everything—police action and procedure, martial arts, and so many twists and turns you’ll want to see how each one turns out. First-time novelist Steve Holley is a life-long student of the martial arts and a 36-year veteran of police work, and his experience shows in the story’s realism. In this unique police thriller, he combines his mastery of martial arts and the years of patrolling the mean streets to bring the reader a gritty sense of realism other writers can only hope for. This one is as true as it gets and will keep you turning the pages long after your bedtime and reading into the wee hours of the night. Steve Holley is a writer to watch.
-- Loren W. Christensen, best-selling author of 60 books.