THE UNRAVELING OF BRENDAN MEEKS by Brian Cohn @briancohnMD

5 out of 5 stars

On Amazon UK
On Amazon.com
On Goodreads

How I discovered this book:  it was submitted to Rosie Amber's Review Team, of which I am a member.  I had previously read The Last Detective by this author, and very much liked his writing style.

Brendan Meeks is schizophrenic.  He thinks his head contains an important, secret code, and that mysterious men in dark suits are trying to get inside his brain.  He comes from an affluent, middle class, dysfunctional family; his mother is cold and aspirational, his father a weak shadow, but his sister is the one light in his life.  Brendan lives in a run down apartment block, where his friends are a druggie, a drunkard and a dealer, but they've become his new family.

When tragedy strikes, Brendan is sure that the police are not doing enough to solve the crime, and takes on his own investigation.  Trouble is, he is unable to tell what is truth and what is just the voices in his head...

'My voices commanded me to do awful things, like jump off a bridge or slit my throat or step out into traffic.  They never told me to do anything useful or productive, like, 'Eat more vegetables' or 'Don't forget to floss'.'

I read this book over just two days, it's very good indeed.  Brendan is likeable and totally believable, and every character, even the minor ones, shine out.  Mr Cohn's writing style is intelligent, incisive, and subtly amusing, which is just right for this unusual and highly original story.  Cliché alert: I couldn't put it down!

Brendan makes some excellent observations:

About a DEA officer ~ 'His voice was low and soft, with a backwoods Louisiana accent, Cajun and Creole and jambalaya all mixed together.  I envisioned him living in a house on stilts, driving a fan boat and wrestling alligators in his spare time.  He probably put Tabasco sauce in his coffee'.

About a dealer: '...a pudgy white guy with short blond hair ... he looked like a bloated Eminem, and I wondered if he had eaten the rapper and taken on some of his persona in the process'.

The plot itself is interesting, some of it almost black humour, but it's tragic, too, and I had no idea what the outcome would be.  When it came, it wrapped all the threads up nicely, and gave me hope for Brendan too.  I don't throw 5* around but this book definitely deserves it.  The author has masses of genuine talent, the sort you can't learn, or fake with 'by-numbers' plots.  Highly recommended!

THE LAST DETECTIVE by Brian Cohn @briancohnMD #RBRT

4 out of 5 stars

On Amazon UK
On Amazon.com
On Goodreads

How I discovered this book: It was submitted to Rosie Amber's Book Review Team, of which I am a member.

Before the alien invasion, Adrian Grace was a cop.  Then the 'slicks' arrived, and their word is law.  Two years later, Adrian is ekeing out a dreary existence in a motel, with his family far away in Boston.  A group of the city dwellers work for the Authority, and police the population according to the rules of the slicks.  Food is short, there is little fuel, and life is one of darkness and danger, with the Authority herding chosen people off to labour camps from which nobody ever returns.  But there is revolution in the air.

Then Grace is asked to solve the murder of one of the slicks.  In an action-packed plot taking place over a period of just a few days, he is drawn into a labyrinth of corruption, lies, dubious loyalties and misplaced assumptions about those with whom he comes into contact.

Brian Cohn has created a compelling dystopian world, with lots of evocative detail and ponderings on life, the universe and everything.  Grace makes for a likeable and interesting first person narrative, in turn depressive, philosophical, cynical and dryly humorous; there are some amusing touches, such as the daily game of Russian roulette with his food - the tins are not labelled.  He always hopes it won't be dog food.  Sometimes it is.

I did enjoy this book, and love Cohn's writing style, but I wished for a little more rounding out of the circumstances ~ we are taken from the day of the alien landing (in the prologue), to two years later, only ever seeing hints about what happened in between.  I wanted to know how the slicks took over, who they were, why they arrived, how the society broke down.  And what happened in the labour camps.  The darkness of the city is illustrated beautifully, but as the novel concentrates almost solely on the situation in which Grace finds himself, I was left with lots of unanswered questions.

To sum up: it worked well as detective/mystery/conspiracy novel, less so as a sci-fi/post apocalyptic, which was the aspect that attracted me.  I'd definitely read something else by this author, though.