The Rule by David Jackson

 

When we first meet Daniel we think he’s a child. He acts like a child and speaks like a child and his inner monologue is that of a child. But we soon learn he is in fact about to turn 23 and is looking forward to his birthday. 

But Daniel also has a rule which his parents insist he must follow, and The Rule is not to touch anyone. We soon discover why: Daniel is uncannily strong and can cause harm without meaning to. 

Daniel lives with his mum and dad in a block of flats and one day they encounter a man in the lift, a drug dealer, and things go awry.

I won’t divulge spoilers but needless to say, Daniel’s strength now leads the family into great peril. Because the drug dealer’s associates want to know what has happened to him, as do the police, and it isn’t long before they’re all closing in

The Rule is the second novel by David Jackson that I’ve read, after his excellent novel The Resident. This isn’t a sequel, but it’s similar in that it takes a surprising premise and runs with it. Like The Resident, The Rule is well worth a read.

The Colours of Death by Patricia Marques

This is an intriguing novel set in an alternate universe Lisbon where a small percentage of the population have psychic powers and are treated with mistrust by the rest. When a man inside a train carriage is lifted by invisible forces and slammed against the carriage walls until he’s dead, psychically gifted Inspector Isabel Reis is put on the case. 

This is a good and original sci-fi which touches on various issues, not least the prejudice minorities face. The gifted community are treated with suspicion by most, and hatred by more than a few, especially after an event in the past where a powerfully gifted girl caused a disaster. In this way their treatment is reminiscent of how Muslims are treated today: a tiny minority commit atrocities and yet the majority suffer intolerance because of it. The victim is linked to the head of a powerful anti-gifted party and this too has strong similarities to the anti-immigrant nationalist parties we have today. 

There’s a slight oddity to the narrative in that we never learn the wider context - how the gifted came into existence (it’s a relatively new phenomenon) and whether they exist anywhere else in the world. Indeed, the wider world outside of Portugal is never mentioned. That said, this doesn’t spoil the story at all, it just leaves the reader with some unanswered questions.

A great read this, and presumably there’ll be a sequel. If so there’s plenty of space for the author to flesh out the world she’s created.

 

The Basel Killings by Hansjörg Schneider

 

It’s the end of October, though it could be December, as it’s unseasonably cold and wet. The setting is Basel, a city in northwestern Switzerland. It’s late at night and Inspector Humkeler is walking home, a little worse for wear, when he spots someone he knows, old man Hardy. He stops, hoping to beg a cigarette from the old man. But Hardy is dead, his throat slit ear to ear. The police and media assume it is the work of Albanian drug traffickers, but Inspector Humkeler remembers an earlier case, that of Barbara Amsler, who was murdered in a similar fashion. He investigates and visits Basel’s seedier side - the red-light district and underworld - and soon finds a conspiracy which leads to the political and industrial elite.

This is the first novel in a new series and it’s the first book by the author that I’ve read. It’s a solid noir, reminiscent of the Private Investigator novels of old, in that Inspector Humkeler is very much doing his own thing. He’s part of the police, but because the force he belongs to is pursuing the Albanian drug trafficker angle with which he disagrees, he’s conducting his own investigation.

Switzerland is a rich, industrial nation, but it has its darker side. Well known for laundering dodgy money through the its banking system, but the country also has its fair share of illegal migrants and the people who prey on them, prostitution and drug trafficking. In a past life I worked as a journalist for Channel 4. I worked on a documentary filming in Switzerland which touched on some of these issues. The author does a good job of portraying this scene, the desperation of those who fall victim, and the unsavoury characters who ply their trade.

The Basel Killings is an excellent book and a strong start to a series.