Places in the Darkness

Set some time in the future on a space-station called Ciudad de Cielo or more colloquially CdC, which spearheads humanity's scientific efforts to colonise distant planets. Unfortunately the lofty scientific ideals are underpinned by a seedy underbelly where menial workers drown their sorrows, and supplement their incomes through prostitution, gambling and illegal fight clubs. The centre of this den of iniquity is Nikki 'The Fixx" Freeman, a former cop on Earth who runs a small-time protection racket alongside her offiicial role on the station. Alice Blake is the baby-faced new broom from earth who has been tasked to take over from the current head of CdC, a straight arrow she is horrified by the constant rule-breaking and casual lawlessness that she sees everywhere, even allowing children to float free in the shuttle ship and illegally growing mint for cocktails. When a body is found gruesomely murdered by two technicians it is the first official murder on CdC, Alice is tasked with investigating the murder and she asks Nikki to be assigned to assist, hoping to get he fast track to the level of corruption by working (undercover) with someone who has been described as the most corrupt police officer on CdC! Nikki is having enough problems with a potential war abut to erupt between two groups of bootleggers, she doesn't need to babysit some richie rich kid from earth who has pulled some strings to see CdC. Written in the present tense (which frankly, made me a little tense), this story was bot confusing and gripping as it switched between different points of view. It reminded me of that Arnold Schwarzenegger classic Total Recall with the wealthy elite pontificating on corruption whilst not paying their employees enough to live on. I'll confess I did put this book down a few times at the start, I was just totally confused by the characters and who was who, and what was what. But I'm glad I persevered, this had practically everything I could ever want in a sci-fi book set on a space-station. There's seedy bars, bootlegging, corrupt cops, mysterious assassins, high tech equipment that allows users to record anything and everything they see, lots of bodies piling up, memory loss ... it's got it all. I've only every read one of Chris Brookmyre's books before, this is a substantial departure and, aside from the use of the present tense, I really enjoyed it. The plot kept me guessing right to the end. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

This is a good read, easy to follow, the characters are interesting, and the technology theme is intriguing. At points Chris tends towards over explaining things, while the science is complicated, he spends a little to long in character dialogues going over it. If you can skip through these then you'll really enjoy this book. I wish he'd have expanded on some of the side stories a little more, there are a few characters who are interesting but you pass in and out a little too quickly

Well, starts out strong, but ends up being not half as smart as it thinks it is. Add to this a couple of technical/logical flaws (e.g. the gravity - which, admittedly most readers won't care about). Overall a good read until - as so often - the protagonists unravel the 'mystery'