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Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 April 2024
A very easy book to read, and one that I enjoyed, staying up late to finish it. It’s a tale of organised crime and revenge, set in a fictional ‘Sovereign City’. I don’t think it’s ever explained exactly what and where Sovereign City is, and I read it as being a USA-style city state rather than just a fictional city in the USA – but, either way, I don’t think it matters.
From the first pages of the book where the main character is betrayed by his ‘business’ partner, I never stopped wanting to know what was going to happen next. The violence is gory, but unlike some reviewers I did appreciate the quieter times (include childhood flashbacks) between the killings and mutilations: a chance to understand the characters and what motivates them. Ideally, I would have liked more of a closure in the ending, but this isn’t perhaps surprising given that the book is advertised as the first of a series (although no sequel has materialised in the three years since its publication).
So why 4 stars rather than 5? Well, there were a few small things, and one bigger thing. The small things included the mechanics of the jail break (which I thought was a bit unrealistic) and the lack of success of the manhunt for the escapee (given his kingpin status, I thought more would have been done). The bigger thing was simply that none of the characters are likeable, so that ultimately I wasn’t too worried about anything awful happening to them. But that last point is perhaps inevitable in a novel that simply follows the bad guys, so is something to be aware of rather than a criticism. As I said at the start, I enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes fast-moving, violence-filled books of this type – but a ‘cosy’ mystery it most certainly isn’t!