Investigator Vissarion Lom
has been summoned to the capital in order to catch a terrorist - and ordered to
report directly to the head of the secret police.
A totalitarian state, worn
down by an endless war, must be seen to crush home-grown insurgents with an
iron fist. But Lom discovers Mirgorod to be more corrupted than he imagined: a
murky world of secret police and revolutionaries, cabaret clubs and doomed
artists.
Lom has been chosen
because he is an outsider, not involved in the struggle for power within the
party. And because of the sliver of angel stone implanted in his head.
Wolfhound Century is the debut novel by author Peter Higgins. A weird tale of espionage
in an alternate, fantastical Russia – it’s a bit like China Mieville had a
party with John Le Carre. On acid.
The book follows Inspector
Vissarion Lom, a small-town police detective who hasn’t done himself any
favours when it comes to self-promotion with his superiors. But out of the blue
for Lom, he’s summoned to the vast capital city of Mirgorod, a sort of
Moscow/St. Petersburg/ New Crobuzon hybrid, to investigate the reappearance of
a suspected terrorist. It is Lom’s ability to ask the right questions and stay
in the dark that is required by the head of police in Mirgorod. So Wolfhound Century goes on to become a
story about spies, artists, revolutionaries, gunfights and death-defying chases
on the cool, wet streets of Mirgorod. So far, so James Bond.
But James Bond doesn’t have
angels, sentient rain and giants. I don’t remember seeing many weird, walking
trees and vast stone golems in Skyfall.
Higgins’ has managed to craft
something truly different. It’s a neo-noir fantasy thriller that is filled to
the brim with ideas and imagery that jumps off the page. His prose is honed to
near perfection. His descriptions and style are so atmospheric that several
scenes in particular are still clearly with me long after finishing the book.
Seriously, the way Higgins describes rain is incredible:
“Two kinds of rain fell on Podchornok. There was steppe rain from the
west, sharp and cold, blown a thousand versts across the continental plain in
ragged shreds. And the other kind was forest rain. Forest rain came from the
east in slow, weighty banks of nimbostratus that settled over the town for days
at a time and shed their cargo in warm fat sheets. It fell and fell with dumb
insistence, overbrimming the gutters and outflows and swelling the waters of
the Yannis until it flowed fat and yellow and heavy with mud. In spring the
forest rain was thick with yellow pollen that stuck in your hair and on your
face and lips and had a strange taste. In autumn it smelled of resin and earth.
This, today, this was forest rain.”
The plot never lets up, as you might expect from something so easily
compared favorably to John Le Carre – it’s at times exciting, exhausting and
terrifying to read. My only problem with the book was that its ending was so
abrupt. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t mean to say there is a cliffhanger – but
rather that it just ends, practically mid-scene. It’s a bizarre choice and in
many ways left me with the feeling that this is only half of one greater novel.
I’m under the assumption that there will be a sequel – otherwise I’d really
have to reassess my feelings on Wolfhound
Century.
So apart from that ending, Wolfhound
Century is an extraordinarily accomplished debut from a real master of
atmosphere. Peter Higgins has managed to create a completely unique fantasy
world with a plot that wouldn’t be out of place in a modern day thriller. But
what sets it apart (except for the angels, golems and sentient rain) is the
sense that really, anything could happen. This is what good genre fiction can
do – it can take the familiar and imbue it with the fantastic, creating
something fresh, original and a real standout novel. Excellent stuff – now
where’s Part Two?
Thanks to Gollancz for
providing me with an advanced review copy of Wolfhound Century.
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