The Automatic Detective (A. Lee Martinez)

I checked this out on impulse - I saw it while waiting in line at the library for a different book - and I'm glad I did. It is unpretentious and a lot of fun. The hero is a giant android built for war who develops the "sentience glitch" and becomes self-aware, refusing his creator's orders to kill. The society where he lives is full of sentient machines as well as drones, those who strictly follow their programming, and they grant him probation. If he can avoid any problems for a limited period of time, he'll be granted citizenship. As the story opens, though, he gets embroiled in a drama involving a neighbor family that is kidnapped, and it brings him up against the police, the government, and an extra-governmental force that doesn't have humanity's best interests at heart. Of course, all comes out well in the end, but the ride is fun. There's no great literature here, but the writing is zesty and the story engaging.