Halfhead

By Stuart B MacBride (HarperCollins, RRP: $34.99)

 

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Having read and enjoyed Stuart MacBride's DS Logan series I had initial doubts about his latest offering. But those initial doubts didn't last long as his latest thriller set in Glasgow in the near future drags you along at breakneck speed.

Most of the population live in massive tower blocks and live out their lives with virtual reality programs to keep them quiet. Criminals – mostly murderers – are subjected to a process known as halfheading, where a criminal's lower jaw is surgically removed along with a lobotomy and they are then bar-coded. After that, they are put to work doing menial tasks no one else will do as a reminder to the rest of the population that crime doesn't pay.

But one half-head wakes up after six years, with the remains of a man she has just butchered in a toilet block in Sherman House – one of the tower block ghettos populated with life's dregs of society.

As the half-head once known as Dr Fiona Westfield begins to have flashes of memory of who she was before surgery she sets out on a quest for revenge.

Will Hunter, Assistant Director of the Network – an elite wing of the Police Force – is sent to investigate the murder at Sherman House.

During his investigation, Hunter and his team are involved in a huge fire-fight with the local inhabitants. As the investigation continues, Hunter finds himself on the trail of a sadistic killer who is able to move around undetected. And he discovers something even worse: a biological programme that fuels violence among the city's most vulnerable citizens.

Halfhead is a fast-paced thriller that won't let MacBride fans down. You might consider this a work of science fiction, but it's really a gritty no-holds-barred crime thriller set in the future and Hunter is a good old-fashioned detective tracking down leads and solving crimes.

A great read. One of those books you can't put down.

- © Fairfax NZ News