Body Politic - Hardcover

Johnston, Paul

3.81

227 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312202792 ISBN 13: 9780312202798

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 1999

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Edinburgh 2020: After years of rioting and chaos, during which time the United Kingdom was dissolved into dozens of warring city-states, Edinburgh achieves stability thanks to the Council of City Guardians and their vision of a new Age of Enlightenment. It becomes the Body Politic.

The Council's goal of a "perfect" city-where television, private cars, and popular music are banned, and where crime is virtually nonexistent-is shattered when a brutal serial killer is discovered among their ranks. Can the fearsome Ear, Nose and Throat Man be back to his grisly old tricks? The usually complacent Council is forced to turn to the man they demoted years ago-the irreverent, blues-haunted Quintilian Dalrymple-to catch the gruesome killer.

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About the Author:

Paul Johnston was born and grew up in Scotland. He divides his time between England and a small Greek Island. Body Politic, which won England's prestigious John Creasey Award for best first crime novel, is the first in a series featuring renegade investigator Quintilian Dalrymple.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Edinburgh, 2020. The Enlightenment that swept through the city years ago has virtually eliminated crime, along with individuality, spontaneity, blues music, and anything citizens might have wanted to do after the 10 p.m. curfew. So it's a matter of considerable concern when the Public Order Directorate discovers that guardswoman Knox 96, a.k.a. Sarah Spence, has been murdered in a way eerily reminiscent of the Ear, Nose, and Throat Man, whose horrible mutilations still haunt the public memory since his last killing five years ago. Edinburgh's official guardians immediately summon Quintilian Dalrymple, who quit the Directorate to work as a Parks laborer and sometime private eye, to clear up the mystery before it affects the tourist trade. But Quint is reluctant to return to his old job, not only because he's just taken on a private clientKatharine Kirkwood, whose brother Adam has been missing for ten daysbut because he knows the rash of murders that's just beginning isn't the work of the ENT Man, whom he killed himself five years ago in revenge for his lover's death. It looks like Quint and Katharine will have to settle for uncovering a sex-slaves racket, medical-research corruption, and an avenger even more ruthless than Quint en route to realizing that ``in the perfect city, the only way to express free will was to commit murder.'' Forget the rickety, overstuffed plot and you'll see why Johnston's bone-chilling dystopia took Britain's John Creasey Award for the year's best crime debut. -- Copyright �1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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