March 19, 2018
Lyrical language, stream-of-consciousness dialogue, and a nonlinear structure complicate this otherwise straightforward tale of entrapment within, and resistance against, a future England where every crime can be resolved through financial restitution or indentured servitude. As part of the Criminal Audit Office, Theo Miller determines what each offense is worth: £780 for sexual harassment, £84,000 for murder, and so forth. But when Dani, his ex-girlfriend, is murdered while attempting to expose the all-powerful, all-controlling Company for its corruption and abuses—and she names Theo as her missing daughter’s father before she dies—Theo is determined to finish what she started, even if it means destroying both Company and country in the process. His investigation takes him to all corners of England, from rich enclaves to hopeless slums, as the dark secrets of his own past unfold. North (The End of the Day) paints a vivid and disturbing picture of a corporate-run future devoid of human rights. The complex intricacy of her narrative voice makes this more of a poetic vision quest than a straightforward adventure, and the experimental style and tangled plotline show an admirable grasp of technique but may frustrate readers expecting a more conventional dystopian thriller.
April 15, 2018
A story about the value of one human life.The man known as Theo Miller works in the Criminal Audit Office, setting the prices for various crimes against society. In a world without the concept of human rights, a capitalist world run completely by the Company, prison is "deeply inefficient." Far better to charge a price for each crime and send those who can't pay to work off their debts. It's Theo's job to calculate the cost of crime--so much for manslaughter, with deductions if, say, the victim was a resident alien. It's a bleak but orderly world that's disrupted when a woman from his past appears, because she knows that he's not who he says he is, and in return for keeping quiet, she wants to know where her daughter is. To find her, the man known as Theo Miller must risk destroying his own quiet little life--and a lot more lives with it. North (The End of the Day, 2017, etc.) has created a compellingly dark and gritty world where everything has a price and those who can't pay aren't treated as human. The sometimes stream of consciousness of the story, with past and present folding over on one another, does distance the reader from events and reduces the tension of Theo's quest to uncover the truth. Still, the story is strong enough to keep the reader interested.Style gets in the way of substance here, but North is an original and even dazzling writer, and fans of her work will enjoy this grim tale of capitalism taken to a terrifying extreme.
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Starred review from April 15, 2018
North, the author of such splendid novels as The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August (2014) and Touch (2015), continues to create wonderfully rich worlds and deeply compelling characters. Here it's England in the not-so-distant future. Years after civil rights were abolished, and the country turned over most of its governance to a massive corporation known as the Company, a man who calls himself Theo Miller works in the Criminal Audit Office; he's an accountant whose job is to assign monetary value to crimes (perpetrators can then pay the money or take their punishment). When an old friend is murdered, the man who calls himself Theo?this phrasing is important?takes it upon himself to investigate the reason for her death. In the process, he uncovers a conspiracy of epic proportions, one whose exposure could rock the country to its foundations. One of the many joys of a Claire North novel is the way in which she chooses to tell the story; each book is unique, written in a prose style that perfectly complements and enriches the story. Here passages written in a sort of prose-poetic style (sentences end or begin midway through; thoughts are interrupted; punctuation is left out) vividly convey the dramatic tone of the moment. Another captivating novel from one of the most intriguing and genre-bending novelists currently working in the intersection between thriller and science fiction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)