Liar's Pendulum (2007)

Liar's Pendulum is set in the fictitious city of Johanna in the near future. The main character, Alaric Almalquilar (a.k.a. Johnny Joe Blue), is a charismatic, street-smart ex-cop-turned-private Investigator/bounty hunter. Dauntless and of dubious nobility, he is on the run from pernicious forces bent on stopping him from getting his hands on top-secret, stolen research technology that everybody wants and only he knows where to acquire. Alaric's mission is to get the technology safely underground to a benevolent order of scientists before it falls into the wrong hands. However, as he gets closer to acquiring the top-secret technology and his pursuers close in, we learn that there is a lot more to Alaric's story than meets the eye...