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Poison City by Paul Crilley
Jun. 9th, 2016 10:56 pmThe Blurb On The Back:
The name’s Gideon Tau, but everyone just calls me London
I work for the Delphic Division, the occult investigative unit of the South African Police Service. My life revolves around two things – finding out who killed my daughter and imagining what I’m going to do to the bastard when I catch him.
Life is pretty routine – I solve crimes, I search for my daughter’s killer, I try and keep my dog away from the booze. Wash, rinse, repeat. Until the day I’m called out to the murder of a ramanga – a low-key vampire – basically the tabloid journalist of the vampire world. It looks like an open and shut case. There’s even CCTV footage of the killer.
Except … the face on the CCTV footage? It’s the face of the man who killed my daughter. I’m about to face a tough choice. Catch her killer or save the world? I can’t do both.
It’s not looking good for the world.
( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )
The Verdict:
Paul Crilley’s debut adult novel is a strong blend of urban fantasy and crime fiction that will be familiar to fans of Ben Aaronovich. What’s great about the book is the location - Crilley really makes the most of Durban, bringing the geography and people to live and setting his plot against the politics and economic situation of South Africa. Also great is the extensive world building that Crilley does here – there’s a lot going on and while there are times when it’s a little too dense, this does feel like a fully realised world with a lot of potential. I particularly liked the details about how the Delphic Division is set up and operates and how that works with South African politics and Crilley’s put a lot of thought into his magic systems (known in the book as shinecraft). Character-wise, Tau was for me a little too stock a detective character (alcoholic drowning in grief) and his relationship with his ex-wife was spartan to the point of being a plot device. However the dog is great and I loved Tau’s boss, Armstrong, who’s a strong female boss with a mean line in Harry Potter jokes and who undertakes a massive development that holds a lot of promise for future books in the series. There were some pacing issues, mainly due to the weight of the world building but all in all this is a solid start to what promises to be an interesting series.
POISON CITY will be released in the United Kingdom on 11th August 2016. Thanks to Amazon Vine for the ARC of this book.
I work for the Delphic Division, the occult investigative unit of the South African Police Service. My life revolves around two things – finding out who killed my daughter and imagining what I’m going to do to the bastard when I catch him.
Life is pretty routine – I solve crimes, I search for my daughter’s killer, I try and keep my dog away from the booze. Wash, rinse, repeat. Until the day I’m called out to the murder of a ramanga – a low-key vampire – basically the tabloid journalist of the vampire world. It looks like an open and shut case. There’s even CCTV footage of the killer.
Except … the face on the CCTV footage? It’s the face of the man who killed my daughter. I’m about to face a tough choice. Catch her killer or save the world? I can’t do both.
( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )
The Verdict:
Paul Crilley’s debut adult novel is a strong blend of urban fantasy and crime fiction that will be familiar to fans of Ben Aaronovich. What’s great about the book is the location - Crilley really makes the most of Durban, bringing the geography and people to live and setting his plot against the politics and economic situation of South Africa. Also great is the extensive world building that Crilley does here – there’s a lot going on and while there are times when it’s a little too dense, this does feel like a fully realised world with a lot of potential. I particularly liked the details about how the Delphic Division is set up and operates and how that works with South African politics and Crilley’s put a lot of thought into his magic systems (known in the book as shinecraft). Character-wise, Tau was for me a little too stock a detective character (alcoholic drowning in grief) and his relationship with his ex-wife was spartan to the point of being a plot device. However the dog is great and I loved Tau’s boss, Armstrong, who’s a strong female boss with a mean line in Harry Potter jokes and who undertakes a massive development that holds a lot of promise for future books in the series. There were some pacing issues, mainly due to the weight of the world building but all in all this is a solid start to what promises to be an interesting series.
POISON CITY will be released in the United Kingdom on 11th August 2016. Thanks to Amazon Vine for the ARC of this book.
