Club Contango is an enthralling and vivid sci-fi/cyberpunk novel, written by Eliane Boey, and published by Dark Matter INK. A complex story that will be following a single mother, Connie Lam, who runs a microcasino with her best friend in Freeport, when she's caught up in the middle between the murder of an old business partner from Earth and more holograms of versions of herself appearing in the streets.

A plot where we can appreciate Boey's attention to develop a cast of characters that the reader will immediately empathize with, starting with Connie. Single mother, doing what she can to maintain her residency at Freeport, and especially, trying to balance all in his life in order to give the best of opportunity to her son, Sticky. Chase, her best friend, and the other person that runs the microcasino, only appears when he wants, a charismatic person, and an incredible help to Connie, even if unreliable (and Sticky loves him). Most of the people we know around Club Contango are working class people, relying on their job to stay in Freeport (as visas are related to it); the Club acts as their place to cope with their lives.

Boey weaves a great plot around Connie; a person that finds herself in the need of help to get out of a mess that only seems to become bigger, but who, at the same time, realizes she's the only one with the power to change the situation. Not only will we have a story whose twists will surprise us (and I cannot spoil, because I firmly believe it's part of the experience to discover it), but which also takes the opportunity of discuss themes such as identity, the blur of it due to AI copies, and how the working class gets into being exploited under false promises. Through Connie, we can also appreciate how difficult is to be a lone parent, full of love for Sticky and working each single cell of her body if that means a better opportunity for him.

The worldbuilding is simply excellent, with an insane fixation to the detail, from the clothes to the meals, creating its own kind of cyberpunk setting with her own touches that come from the South Asian influence. Freeport itself was promised as a new opportunity to start, but it became an immobile society where there's a big division between the contractors (the working class) and those that own the capital; visas are tied to employment, putting an extra pressure on the humble people. One of the consequences of it is how Club Contango fills a needed niche for those working people.
The pacing is fast, with the pages flowing as you proceed to devour this intoxicating and almost dreamy tale.

Club Contango is an excellent novel, showing Boey's skill at creating compelling characters that are used to discuss nowadays' problems at cyberpunk worlds; if you love a good sci-fi story, you should totally pick this one. I can totally say that it is a candidate for my book of the year 2024.