Broken monsters

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Lauren Beukes: Broken monsters (2014)

528 pages

English language

Published Sept. 10, 2014

ISBN:
978-0-7322-9554-7
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OCLC Number:
884719900

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5 stars (1 review)

His wildest dreams are your worst nightmare ... From Arthur C Clarke award-winning author Lauren Beukes comes a terrifying yet compulsive new thriller. In the city that's become a symbol for the death of the American dream, a nightmare killer is unravelling reality. Detective Gabi Versado no longer believes in justice. She's seen too much stupidity, corruption and just plain badness. But never anything like this. And now it's bleeding into her life. He was a broken man. The dreams which once fueled his ambition have curdled inside him - dreams of recognition, love and family. But now he has new dreams - dreams of flesh and bone made monstrously beautiful. Detroit is the decaying corpse of the American Dream. Motor-city. Murder-city. Now a killer with the touch of an artist is turning it into the worst kind of nightmare ...

9 editions

Fascinating body horror

5 stars

Lauren Beukes is another author I have yet to be disappointed by. When I started reading it, it read a bit like your average serial killer story, set in Detroit. But it leaned more towards body horror and lovecraftian touches towards the end.

We're never really guessing who the murderer is, because we get to live his descent into madness, driven on by a Lovecraftian dream, committing ever more gruesome art. The real star of the novel is probably Detroit, with a vibrant art scene, and descriptions of all its industrial ruins. But we also different PoVs. We get Gabi, single mom, leading investigator of the case, too busy with work to pay much attention to her 15-year old daughter, who is struggling with the divorce, catfishing online to trick pedophiles. There's Jonno, who decides to become a YouTuber about Detroit, who shows the ugly side of social media.

I …

Subjects

  • Serial murderers
  • Serial murder investigation
  • Fiction

Places

  • Detroit (Mich.)
  • Michigan
  • Detroit