Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes
The Blurb On The Back:
He’s lying on his side, his legs pulled up, eyes closed, face serene.
The recovery position.
Only he’s never going to recover.
Detective Gabi Versado has hunted down many monsters during her eight years in Homicide. She’s seen stupidity, corruption and just plain badness. But she’s never seen anything like this.
Clayton Broom is a failed artist, and a broken man. Life destroyed his plans, so he’s found new dreams - of flesh and bone made disturbingly, beautifully real.
Detroit is the decaying corpse of the American Dream. Motor-city. Murder-city. And home to a killer who wants to make you whole again …
Detective Gabi Versado of Detroit’s Homicide department thinks she’s seen it all. Then she’s assigned to cover the murder of 11-year-old Daveyton Lafonte who’s found severed in half with a deer’s legs glued to his body. The killer is Clayton Broom, a failed artist and emotionally disturbed man who is trying to help his victims to transform into something more - something that makes their dreams come true.
Meanwhile ex-journalist-turned blogger Jonno Haim is attempting to make a name for himself by covering Detroit’s burgeoning art scene when he gets a scoop on the murders. TK’s an ex-con who makes his living salvaging materials from foreclosed properties and whose friend Ramon is fascinated by the sudden appearance of graffiti throughout the city in the shape of doors.
The lives of all four interconnect as Clayton desperately tries to alert the whole city to the beauty of his vision …
Lauren Beukes’s horror thriller evocatively captures modern-day Detroit and modern technology but the horror elements felt under-developed and lack explanation, which I found a little frustrating. In addition, many of the point of view characters barely rise above stock characters - particularly Jonno who ticks many of the cliché boxes for bloggers and journalists. I liked Gabi’s 15-year-old-daughter Layla, a bright girl who’s a little off-kilter but her catfish storyline didn’t grab me and didn’t go anywhere and some elements (particularly a scene involving the need to retrieve a bullet) defied logic and credibility. Ultimately, it’s an okay read with a good pace that kept me turning the pages and while it didn’t quite come good for me I would always check out Beukes’s other work.
The best scenes in the book are those where Beukes shows the effects of bankruptcy on Detroit and its residents. Grim and yet hopeful, there’s an authenticity to them that really gave a good sense of place and the frustration of its residents as people come to gawk at their poverty porn. Beukes is also strong on depicting the use of technology in its many forms and notably how younger generations use it. I just wished that the supernatural elements around Clayton had been developed more - I didn’t need a precise explanation but I wanted more of a sense of what it wanted and how it got here and the lack of it ultimately made this a frustrating read for me and one that didn’t quite work.
The Verdict:
Lauren Beukes’s horror thriller evocatively captures modern-day Detroit and modern technology but the horror elements felt under-developed and lack explanation, which I found a little frustrating. In addition, many of the point of view characters barely rise above stock characters - particularly Jonno who ticks many of the cliché boxes for bloggers and journalists. I liked Gabi’s 15-year-old-daughter Layla, a bright girl who’s a little off-kilter but her catfish storyline didn’t grab me and didn’t go anywhere and some elements (particularly a scene involving the need to retrieve a bullet) defied logic and credibility. Ultimately, it’s an okay read with a good pace that kept me turning the pages and while it didn’t quite come good for me I would always check out Beukes’s other work.
He’s lying on his side, his legs pulled up, eyes closed, face serene.
The recovery position.
Only he’s never going to recover.
Detective Gabi Versado has hunted down many monsters during her eight years in Homicide. She’s seen stupidity, corruption and just plain badness. But she’s never seen anything like this.
Clayton Broom is a failed artist, and a broken man. Life destroyed his plans, so he’s found new dreams - of flesh and bone made disturbingly, beautifully real.
Detroit is the decaying corpse of the American Dream. Motor-city. Murder-city. And home to a killer who wants to make you whole again …
Detective Gabi Versado of Detroit’s Homicide department thinks she’s seen it all. Then she’s assigned to cover the murder of 11-year-old Daveyton Lafonte who’s found severed in half with a deer’s legs glued to his body. The killer is Clayton Broom, a failed artist and emotionally disturbed man who is trying to help his victims to transform into something more - something that makes their dreams come true.
Meanwhile ex-journalist-turned blogger Jonno Haim is attempting to make a name for himself by covering Detroit’s burgeoning art scene when he gets a scoop on the murders. TK’s an ex-con who makes his living salvaging materials from foreclosed properties and whose friend Ramon is fascinated by the sudden appearance of graffiti throughout the city in the shape of doors.
The lives of all four interconnect as Clayton desperately tries to alert the whole city to the beauty of his vision …
Lauren Beukes’s horror thriller evocatively captures modern-day Detroit and modern technology but the horror elements felt under-developed and lack explanation, which I found a little frustrating. In addition, many of the point of view characters barely rise above stock characters - particularly Jonno who ticks many of the cliché boxes for bloggers and journalists. I liked Gabi’s 15-year-old-daughter Layla, a bright girl who’s a little off-kilter but her catfish storyline didn’t grab me and didn’t go anywhere and some elements (particularly a scene involving the need to retrieve a bullet) defied logic and credibility. Ultimately, it’s an okay read with a good pace that kept me turning the pages and while it didn’t quite come good for me I would always check out Beukes’s other work.
The best scenes in the book are those where Beukes shows the effects of bankruptcy on Detroit and its residents. Grim and yet hopeful, there’s an authenticity to them that really gave a good sense of place and the frustration of its residents as people come to gawk at their poverty porn. Beukes is also strong on depicting the use of technology in its many forms and notably how younger generations use it. I just wished that the supernatural elements around Clayton had been developed more - I didn’t need a precise explanation but I wanted more of a sense of what it wanted and how it got here and the lack of it ultimately made this a frustrating read for me and one that didn’t quite work.
The Verdict:
Lauren Beukes’s horror thriller evocatively captures modern-day Detroit and modern technology but the horror elements felt under-developed and lack explanation, which I found a little frustrating. In addition, many of the point of view characters barely rise above stock characters - particularly Jonno who ticks many of the cliché boxes for bloggers and journalists. I liked Gabi’s 15-year-old-daughter Layla, a bright girl who’s a little off-kilter but her catfish storyline didn’t grab me and didn’t go anywhere and some elements (particularly a scene involving the need to retrieve a bullet) defied logic and credibility. Ultimately, it’s an okay read with a good pace that kept me turning the pages and while it didn’t quite come good for me I would always check out Beukes’s other work.