Review: 84K by Claire North

Theo Miller knows the value of human life to the very last penny. In the Criminal Audit Office, he assesses each crime that crosses his desk & makes sure the correct debt to society is paid. But when his ex-lover is killed, it's different. This is one death he can't let become merely an entry on a balance sheet. Because when the rich are getting away with murder, sometimes the numbers just don't add up.

I'm a tiny bit obsessed with Claire North's weird-fi writing and have hungrily devoured each of her previous works.

The premise for 84K is slightly... I don't know... juvenile? What if a big corporation ran the UK and the rich could just buy their way out of crimes. But it offers up a convincingly disturbing world to play around in.

If I'm being cynical, it's the first of her novels which feel like it was written to be a TV miniseries. That's no bad thing - the plot cracks along, and there's a cast of malicious and malnourished characters to admire.

The prose is not quite as fractured and idiosyncratic as in "The End of The Day", but still takes bold experiments with text in order to paint a picture of the pervasive percussion of unwanted interruptions.

It is (deliberately) confusing and morally ambiguous. Perhaps a few too many side-plots and a bit too experimental with narrative for my liking.

Well worth reading her previous novels. "The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August" is sublime. "The Sudden Appearance of Hope" is excellent. And "The End of The Day" is magical.

84K is merely very, very good.