Customer Reviews

Body Politic

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

It's Scotland, but not as we know it. In the year 2021 the UK has broken up, and Edinburgh is now a city-state run on the lines of Plato's Republic, with a good measure of corruption thrown in. Unfortunately, that's about as interesting as this book ever gets. The plot is very standard 'grizzly murder' fare and the tone is so cynical that I found it impossible to care about any of the characters, especially the protagonist, Quintillian Dalrymple. I suspect Paul Johnson's reputation has benefitted from the current high level of interest in Edinburgh crime writing. However, for better characters and plots try Ian Rankin; for better writing, try Iain Banks and for grizzlier murders try Christopher Brookmyre. Maybe Johnson's writing will improve. I hope so. In the meantime, I'd certainly recommend this book to someone who is intrigued by a crime novel set in the Edinburgh of the imaginary future. Sound like you?

I was astonished to see lukewarm reader reviews for Body Politic. I read more than a dozen new mysteries a month, and most are yawns with derivative plots, forgettable characters and stereotypical settings. Paul Johnston has catapulted a character similar to Ian Rankin's John Rebus into a dark but believable Edinborough of the future. He's got the police procedural down, and is certainly given it a fresh twist, relying very little on futuristic technology and quite a bit on futuristic sociology. An evening spent with this book will not be wasted. I'm on Amazon tonight to buy more of Johnston's books!

After decades of death and destruction, the citizens of the city-state of Edinburgh finally feel safe at the cost of their identities and individualism. Still, most residents feel the price is worth it as crime has finally come to a virtual end. Everyone works towards the common good by making sure the tourists stay long attending the perpetual Festival. It is top rate, an incentive they will return.

By 2020, murder remains at zero for the past few years. However, that changes when ENT (the Ear, Nose, and Throat man) returns to kill a guardswoman. The desperate ruling body, the Council of the City Guardians, turns to private investigator Quintilan Dalyrmple, an outcast who has experience with the long thought dead ENT. Quint quickly learns he has more to deal with than just capturing a serial killer. He must contend with the bloated bureaucracy and the corrupt Council.

BODY POLITIC is a fabulous science fiction who-done-it that brings freshness to several sub-genres. The superb story line fascinatingly repaints Edinburgh, turning the background into a critical character. Quint is the quintessential hard boiled detective trapped by a society that has no room for him when things are "normal." When trouble occurs, they send him to the firing line. If successful (meaning survives), he receives his gold-plated watch and sent back to live among the dregs. Futuristic mysteries have rarely been as good as Paul Johnston's superbly unique novel.

Harriet Klausner

After decades of death and destruction, the citizens of thecity-state of Edinburgh finally feel safe at the cost of theiridentities and individualism. Still, most residents feel the price is worth it as crime has finally come to a virtual end. Everyone works towards the common good by making sure the tourists stay long attending the perpetual Festival. It is top rate, an incentive they will return.

By 2020, murder remains at zero for the past few years. However, that changes when ENT (the Ear, Nose, and Throat man) returns to kill a guardswoman. The desperate ruling body, the Council of the City Guardians, turns to private investigator Quintilan Dalyrmple, an outcast who has experience with the long thought dead ENT. Quint quickly learns he has more to deal with than just capturing a serial killer. He must contend with the bloated bureaucracy and the corrupt Council.

BODY POLITIC is a fabulous science fiction who-done-it that brings freshness to several sub-genres. The superb story line fascinatingly repaints Edinburgh, turning the background into a critical character. Quint is the quintessential hard boiled detective trapped by a society that has no room for him when things are "normal." When trouble occurs, they send him to the firing line. If successful (meaning survives), he receives his gold-plated watch and sent back to live among the dregs. Futuristic mysteries have rarely been as good as Paul Johnston's superbly unique novel.

I have read this novel over a year ago after it won the Creasey award which is the British equivalent of the Edgar Award for best first novel. I found it to be refreshingly differnt and well thought out. Edinburgh in 2020 is actually based on Plato's Republic and starkly shows us the problem with this system. It is, in a sense, a science fiction novel on the order of Bladerunner in that the reader enters a truly different world. The book is well paced full of fascinating characters. I give a high grade, as well, to the novel's unique and original premise. Its well worth your time. Larry Gandle

Rarely do i start a book and have to abandon it after 200 pages..It happened with this one.
Set up in a clean-cut Edinbourgh of the future this novel is basically a patched up work with bits and pieces and ideas rooted mostly in Orwellian domains (allthough it's a sacrilege to mention Orwell in the same context with this book).
The story is your basic crime story which comes at you the way a storm of cliches would. A serial killer, the witty "cool"-and-against-the-system detective who gets dragged out of retirement to catch the beast that terrorises the city, the murders that keep happening until Sherlock gets the right clues, and you yawning your way through this horror of a book.
Actually the only thing intimidating about this novel is exactly that: how horrible it is. The writting is at best uninspired and lacks any positive contribution to the genre, but worst of all the characters are such that if they existed in real life you would do your best humanly possible not to meet them unless you think that boredom is a virtue.
I read somewhere that this book even won an award in the UK! They must be kidding us!
I found myself totally not caring about the plot of the story already 50 pages in the book and the only reason i kept reading (until i finally gave up a full 150 pages before the end) was that i thought: a. there's an incredible twist coming up here that will save this joke of a story and b. i wanted to see how bad the book can actually get.
But i didnt even get the vicious satisfaction a masochist would seek by reading the worst possible book he could lay his hands on. Because, you see, if it was THAT bad i might've at least finished it. But it's not. It's flat, so flat, that it sets a standard. If this ever gets to be made into a movie some hollywood exec will lose his job.

The debut in Johnston's series set in Edinburgh circa 2020 suffers from having a more interesting setting than plot-which is a rather banal serial-killer number. In this world, the UK has dissolved and Edinburgh exists as a kind of repressive city-state run according to Plato's Republic. The "Enlightenment" led to the elimination of crime, along with individuality, resulting in a combination Stalinist/Puritan society rife with rules, regulations, fines and work camps. The city's primary economic driver is tourism, which the city achieves by combining the gambling of Las Vegas with the sex trade of Amsterdam. Unfortunately, while Johnston does a good job showing how corruption undermines this dystopian society, he never develops the city and its people enough to fully convince. The lives and status of "guardians" (police) are well-depicted, but we never see much of the average citizen and how the rest of the city functions (perhaps this developed later in the series).

The book's nominal hero, Quint, is a standard issue haunted former policeman hero who is recalled from disgrace by the city officials who decide he is the only one with the knowledge/skills to solve the murder of a public guardian-the city's first murder in years. He's typically reluctant, nosy, lustful, burdened with old guilt, and all those other noir detective traits, but his character never quite fully develops. It doesn't help that Quint's parents were both founding members of the Enlightenment, and that his mother is the head of the council. In any event, he is assigned to track down a grisly killer before any damage is done to the tourist industry. This part of the book (ie. the story) is pretty standard stuff, and the few red herrings are easily recognized for what they are. If you're looking for a mystery with an unusual setting, thus might fit the bill, just don't expect the story to live up to the milieu. Future entries in the series may be more fulfilling.

Where to begin, where to begin. It's garbage. Saw the brilliant reviews given to it by the Daily Telegraph, amongst others, and decided to check it out. The writing is risible. It features such hilariously awful similes as: "We had about as many plausible suspects as there were teetotallers in the last House of Parliament before the dissolution of the U.K." You know, just a little tidbit so the reader won't be getting lost. The author probably thinks the narrative style is 'Chandler-esque': however, it's done so badly, and so inappropriately, that it reads like a Mel Brooks version or something. The plot justs falls to pieces towards the end, and it's nothing but a pure laugh beyond that point. But it isn't even that because it's so saturated with stomach-churning gore and sexual violence (and of course the gratuitous sex scene with the Chandler-esque hero... Quintilian). Ever felt a need to learn about the growth and development of maggots? Look no farther. Oh, and he makes it an intellectual thrill too by making a load of what are, in the end, fairly pointless references to Platonism. If you want to check out a really good Scottish writer, buy something by Iain M. Banks instead, who is incredibly inventive and generally a far better writer than this guy.