The Buried Life

An interesting read. There's a lot of hype behind this book and it's definitely well deserved.

When a string of murders begins to take place among Recoletta's upper class, tension and fear runs high throughout the police state. Who would dare to murder these people? And for what reason? A question Municipal Inspector Liesl Malone intends to get to the bottom of. Even when she's kicked off the case, aided by her new partner Sundar they follow the trail of bodies that stretches back decades and seems to revolve around a shadowy name, Prometheus.

This book has been making waves ever since the first ARCs were sent out and I can see why. The Buried Life was an interesting urban fantasy that is definitely inspired by The City and the City by China Mieville. The parallels between the two stories were very clear by the end of the book.

I've repeatedly said that I'm not a fan of urban fantasy, but it's book like Ms. Patel's that make me question the validity of that sentiment at times. I certainly enjoyed this much more than I expected to, but am I ready to jump on the bandwagon with the other readers that it has made waves with? Definitely not.

There's not many fantastical elements in here. Recoletta is a dystopian city in the future where the world has managed to bring itself back to a semblance of our time after some unknown cataclysm. However, it's an interesting dystopia; though mostly modern, there are clear Victorian elements interspersed throughout it. I think it's safest to describe Recoletta as an interesting amalgamation of the last two or three hundred years of the modern world. The city exists on two levels, the above ground where largely the elite of Recoletta reside, and the underground where everyone else is. However, the border is a blurred line; movement is largely free between the two levels, etc.

What I loved most of this book was the mystery. From the start, the book begins mysteriously and this only deepens as events progress. As Malone pursues the murders on one end and Jane the laundress, a character who found herself dragged into events when she very nearly witnessed the murderer, pursues them on another end, Patel paints a mysterious picture of corruption, oppression and conspiracy among the ruling body of Recoletta. This was the largely the only reason I kept reading the book; I wanted to see where things go.

Her characters are good. Not so interesting I'm hooked and want to get into their skins, but not set pieces like most characters in books tend to be for me. With their varied opinions and different courses of actions the entire story has a nebulous quality to it that really exploded at the end of the book, when each character took a side and events became a wonderfully tangled mess of overlapping, intersecting and diverging plot lines.

It irritated me when I first ran into it, but overall I like how Ms. Patel handles the romance in the novel. The little that is in here is negligible, as the book isn't romance-centric, thankfully. Other than the very rare whimsical thought Malone has, certain actions, and a few moments between Jane and another character in the story, there isn't any. As someone that avoids romance-centred novels, this only increased my interest in the book. I don't particularly care to read a book where the plot is little more than a side-show for a baby-mama drama of who's shagging who, and Ms. Patel thankfully doesn't let her book step anywhere near that neck of the woods.

So did it live up to the hype? For the most part, yes. There are clear parallels to China Mieville's book, which I pretty much consider the epitome of the genre, and this made a large part of the book feel average to me. But the rich mystery and the skilled way Ms. Patel manipulates her plot threads made it ultimately enjoyable and a book that stands out on its own for me. I can see why so many folks love it. Considering how much I enjoyed it, even with my biases, I can't truthfully say otherwise.

Will I continue the story? Maybe. I have a lot of unanswered questions left over from this book that I want answers for, but like I said, I'm not really a fan of the genre. Will probably wait for word on it from reviewers I trust before deciding for certain if I'll read onwards. Also, I'm still wary of which direction the romance will take, though I don't think Ms. Patel will disappoint her fans on that front.

Should you read this? If you're a fan of the genre, definitely. Much less fantastical and trope-loaded than what seems to be mainstream urban fantasy, it's a refreshing breath that'll provide an absorbing, fun read. But I don't think it's one of those books you should drop your planned reads and go get right now. And even if you're not a fan of urban fantasy like I am, it's noteworthy as a fun read.