Body Politic [Hardcover]

Paul Johnston (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1999

Edinburgh 2020: After years of rioting and chaos, during which time the United Kingdom was dissolved into dozens of warring city-states, Edinburgh achieves stability thanks to the Council of City Guardians and their vision of a new Age of Enlightenment. It becomes the Body Politic.

The Council's goal of a "perfect" city-where television, private cars, and popular music are banned, and where crime is virtually nonexistent-is shattered when a brutal serial killer is discovered among their ranks. Can the fearsome Ear, Nose and Throat Man be back to his grisly old tricks? The usually complacent Council is forced to turn to the man they demoted years ago-the irreverent, blues-haunted Quintilian Dalrymple-to catch the gruesome killer.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This bleak, near-future hunt for a vicious serial killer won Britain's Creasy Award for best first novel and should capture admiring attention here as well. In the year 2020, Edinburgh is a virtual city-state (founded on the ideas of Plato's Republic) ruled by a benevolently despotic council riddled with corruption. This highly regimented society has lost most traces of individualism. Gone, too, are televisions, private cars, unsanctioned books and musicAas well as most crime, at least until the reemergence of a serial killer known as the ENT (ear, nose and throat) man for his bizarre attentions to his victims. Shocked by the first murder in five years, the council is desperate enough to bring back disgraced private investigator Quintilian Dalrymple, a jazz-loving iconoclast with previous experience of the ENT man. Johnston's spare style doesn't hinder him from effectively limning a society drastically altered by desperate circumstances, and, at the same, spinning a thoroughly entertaining chase novel. Edinburgh's physical and spiritual transformation makes an intriguing backdrop, while Quint, a private eye of the classic mold contending with inept bureaucrats, corruption and a determined killer, makes a first-rate hero. Offbeat but on target, this is one exciting debut.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Edinburgh, 2020. The Enlightenment that swept through the city years ago has virtually eliminated crime, along with individuality, spontaneity, blues music, and anything citizens might have wanted to do after the 10 p.m. curfew. So it's a matter of considerable concern when the Public Order Directorate discovers that guardswoman Knox 96, a.k.a. Sarah Spence, has been murdered in a way eerily reminiscent of the Ear, Nose, and Throat Man, whose horrible mutilations still haunt the public memory since his last killing five years ago. Edinburgh's official guardians immediately summon Quintilian Dalrymple, who quit the Directorate to work as a Parks laborer and sometime private eye, to clear up the mystery before it affects the tourist trade. But Quint is reluctant to return to his old job, not only because he's just taken on a private clientKatharine Kirkwood, whose brother Adam has been missing for ten daysbut because he knows the rash of murders that's just beginning isn't the work of the ENT Man, whom he killed himself five years ago in revenge for his lover's death. It looks like Quint and Katharine will have to settle for uncovering a sex-slaves racket, medical-research corruption, and an avenger even more ruthless than Quint en route to realizing that ``in the perfect city, the only way to express free will was to commit murder.'' Forget the rickety, overstuffed plot and you'll see why Johnston's bone-chilling dystopia took Britain's John Creasey Award for the year's best crime debut. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (August 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312202792
• ISBN-13: 978-0312202798
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,594,386 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Edinburgh's Future? No thanks., July 31, 2000

By 

R. Griffiths "bookchoice" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Body Politic (Hardcover)

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?

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gritty, intriguing, provocative, February 20, 2006

By 

K. G. Anderson "K. G. Anderson" (SEATTLE, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Body Politic (Hardcover)

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!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It is good but not everybody's cuppa, August 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Body Politic (Hardcover)

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