Broken Monsters

From Arthur C Clarke award-winning author Lauren Beukes comes an unsettling yet compulsive new thriller. Broken city, broken dreams ... In the city that's become a symbol for the death of the American dream, a nightmare killer is unravelling reality. A terrifying new thriller from Lauren Beukes, award-winning author of The Shining Girls. 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 ... Praise for Broken Monsters: "Reading Lauren Beukes is like watching a fireworks display. Her sentences pop, fizz and explode across the page; leaving you oohing and ahhing with your mouth open"Michael Robotham, author of Watching You "I unhesitatingly urge you to buy it and read it now!" James Ellroy, author of American Tabloid "A genuinely unsettling-in all the best ways-blend of suspense and the supernatural makes this a serial-killer tale like you've never seen . . . A truly terrifying horror story." Kirkus (starred review) "What Beukes is doing here is using the conventions of the cop novel . . . to do something incredibly clever and incredibly interesting. The plot is slippery and strange, and the tension and the weirdness build and build, to a climax like nothing you've ever read-not in crime fiction, not in literary fiction, not anywhere" Ben H. Winters, author of The Last Policeman "Engrossing, thought-provoking and powerful." Sci-Fi Now "The wildly talented Lauren Beukes has created a darkly majestic jewel of a novel ... Part harrowing thriller, part urban-Grimm's fairytale, but always filled with a deeply affecting humanity, Broken Monsters is the kind of book you'll find yourself pressing into the hands of everyone you know so they can experience it too." Megan Abbott, author of The Fever and Dare Me "Red Dragon meets The Wire. . . . Beukes is a supremely talented author" Library Journal "Beukes is a novelist of unflinchingly keen eye and ambitious ideas. Her love of the cityscape is palpable in her work, and her social commentary biting... This is no Red Dragon - this is something more sinister and beautiful than that." Zoe Hinis, The Book Armada "Seamlessly fuses the unbridled ingenuity of Stephen King with the master craftsmanship of Michael Connelly's police procedurals. Broken Monsters is an unabashedly contemporary thriller, fresh in its approach and narrated with the stylish prose we've come to expect from Beukes." Simon McDonald, WrittenBySime "Beautiful, horrifying, thrilling, and most impressive of all, possessed of a deep and remarkable compassion. I wish I'd written it." Ivy Pochoda, author of Visitation Street "Lauren Beukes is a marvel. Broken Monsters is a brilliant genre-defying thriller that breathes humanity and compassion for its rich, complex characters even as it gives you a hair-raising, nail-biting ride through gritty inner-city Detroit. A must-read." Alice LaPlante, author of Turn of Mind ϡ쯦랠 From Arthur C Clarke Award-winning Author Lauren Beukes Comes An Unsettling Yet Compulsive New Thriller. Broken City, Broken Dreams ... In Detroit, Violent Death - Along With Foreclosure And Despair - Is A Regular Occurrence. But The Part-human, Part-animal Corpses That Have Started Appearing Are More Disturbing Than Anything Detective Gabriella Versado Has Ever Seen. As Gabriella Works The Case, Her Teenage Daughter Layla Embarks On A Secret Crime-fighting Project Of Her Own - Hunting Down Online Paedophiles - But It All Goes Horribly Wrong ... Tk Has Learned How To Make Being Homeless Work For Him And His Friends, But Something Evil Is Threatening The Fragile World He's Constructed On The Streets ... Ambitious Blogger Jonno Is Getting Desperate. The Big Four-oh Isn't That Far Away, And He's Still Struggling To Make His Mark. But Then He Stumbles Across Some Unusual And Macabre Art, Which Might Just Be The Break He Needs To Go Viral ... Broken Monsters Lays Bare The Decaying Corpse Of The American Dream, And Asks What We'd Be Prepared To Do For Fifteen Minutes Of Fame, Especially In An Online World. Detective Gabriella Versado has seen a lot of bodies, but this one is unique even by Detroit's standards: half boy, half deer, somehow fused together. As stranger and more disturbing bodies are discovered, how can the city hold on to a reality that is already tearing at its seams? If you're Detective Versado's geeky teenage daughter, Layla, you commence a dangerous flirtation with a potential predator online. If you're desperate freelance journalist Jonno, you do whatever it takes to get the exclusive on a horrific story. If you're Thomas Keen, known on the street as TK, you'll do what you can to keep your homeless family safe--and find the monster who is possessed by the dream of violently remaking the world.If Lauren Beukes's internationally bestselling The Shining Girls was a time-jumping thrill ride through the past, her Broken Monsters is a genre-redefining thriller about broken cities, broken dreams, and broken people trying to put themselves back together again. 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 ... Detective Gabriella Versado is used to dealing with ugly murders. This is Detroit, after all. But the corpses turning up in abandoned buildings are unlike any she's seen before: queasy mash-ups of animals and humans, like some DIY taxidermied freak show. After her teen daughter Layla finds photographs of the bodies on her computer and leaks it to a blogger friend and thus the whole of the Internet, Gabi finds herself fighting to stay on the case she's compromised - and to save her relationship with her daughter. But as the murders seize the imagination of the populace with copycat killings and disturbing "art installations" appearing overnight, Detective Versado has to hunt down and confront a killer who has let loose the seething subconscious of the city A killer who will tear you apart before he puts you back together. Something strange is happening in Detroit. Hybrid bodies are turning up, half-animal, half-human. For Detective Gabi Versado, they are the word of a twisted monster who surpasses even 'Murder City's' most brutal criminals. For failed artist Clayton Broom, they are his greatest work. Life destroyed his dreams, so now he's found new ones. the question is, can Gabi find him before the person she loves most is drawn into his nightmare? 'I couldn't put it down' Stephen King 'tremendous' the times 'Rare and intriguing' telegraph 'terrifying' Marie Claire 'Engrossing' Sunday times 'thriller of the year' Observer Detective Gabriella Versado investigates after disturbing displays that fuse the bodies of murder victims with those of animals are uncovered in abandoned Detroit buildings.