Places in the Darkness

The award-winning Scottish crime author Chris Brookmyre tweeted a one-star Amazon review he received for his new novel, Places in the Darkness, earlier this month. 'This needs a serious science fiction warning, in capital letters,' raged the reader. 'I feel kind of bad,' responded Brookmyre, brimming with sarcasm. 'My publishers should maybe have put a space station on the cover or something.' Brookmyre, who has dabbled in SF before with the novel Bedlam, gives us a fully realised world—one far enough into the future to feature intriguing technologies, such as the mesh implants that upload information into their owner's brains. But what this veteran crime writer really provides in Places in the Darkness is another corker of a murder mystery, giving him the opportunity to wow us with an even twistier twist than usual.

Chris Brookmyre raised eyebrows when he revealed his latest novel was set in space, but Places in the Darkness doesn't disappoint. Our first companion is Alice Blake, a government representative on her first journey to CdC from Earth, and the reader shares her disorientation at being bombarded with new information and sensations. Just as we've sized up Alice, we meet Nikki Fixx, in the throes of an almighty hangover. A cop, she is tasked with investigating the CdC's first murder—and yes, she's forced to work with Alice, in buddy-cop film style, and the novel lives up to his description of it as 'space noir' as our patience with the sci-fi setup is rewarded with a crime plot heavy on misinformation and misdirection. Good writers push themselves in new directions, though it's a brave move—there is no guarantee the audience will follow. But Places in the Darkness is an ingenious crime story with plenty of relevance to today’s world.

Places in the Darkness by Chris Brookmyre Ciudad de Cielo (CdC) is the City in the Sky, humanity's gateway to the stars. Located many thousands of kilometres above Earth, CdC is a space station comprising two enormous wheels, each wheel the home to thousands of men and women. There are no children. The pace builds and before you know it we're aboard a runaway train. Places in the Darkness is tremendously exciting, full of surprises, deadly chases and dark conspiracies, all taking place in the contrasting shadows and artificial light of Ciudad de Cielo. When I reached the end I was surprised at how far this book had taken me. It’s not a straightforward journey but it is most certainly thrilling. This is one of the best science fiction crime novels I've read in a long time—with the best of characters, story and mood—and I can only hope that Chris Brookmyre takes us into orbit or beyond again.

Chris Brookmyre is an author who is hard to pin down, which is one of the things that make his books so intriguing and entertaining. We've seen him referred to, and may even have referred to him ourselves, as an 'author of Tartan Noir'. And it’s certainly true that many of his books could be fitted within that genre. Places in the Darkness is a book that is very hard to review without spoiling for prospective readers. It's easy enough, and harmless enough, to say what a great book it is. But this is a book in which very little is what it seems; and a book in which almost no-one is who they appear. To embark on a discussion of the characters, or plot, however superficially, is to risk taking away some of the joy of discovery that is part of what makes the book so good. As we read the book, the comparison that kept coming to mind was the 1982 film, Blade Runner. A great read for anyone with a taste for excellent sci-fi or excellent crime writing.