'Bloodlines' – Chris Wraight (Black Library)

My flat is tiny but there are still many places where books can hide and pop out when I least expect them. You see, I've got a habit of buying books, popping them down somewhere and then just finding them again months later; often when I'm looking for something else entirely.

I wasn't really intending on reading 'Bloodlines' any time soon; I'd forgotten that I even had a copy until Sunday afternoon when I was moving some furniture around and found a little stockpile of books hiding behind another pile of books. You'd think that little moments like this would stop me buying more books but just wait until next payday... ;o)

Anyway... I wasn't quite ready to go back to the pile of books that I should be reading so thought I'd give 'Bloodlines' a long overdue read. And this is the post where I tell you all about it.

In the immense city of Varangantua, life is cheap but mistakes are expensive. When Probator Agusto Zidarov of the city’s enforcers is charged with locating the missing scion of a wealthy family, he knows full well that the chances of finding him alive are slight. The people demanding answers, though, are powerful and ruthless, and he is soon immersed in a world of criminal cartels and corporate warfare where even an enforcer’s survival is far from guaranteed. As he follows the evidence deeper into the city’s dark underbelly, he discovers secrets that have been kept hidden by powerful hands. As the net closes in on both him and his quarry, he is forced to confront just what measures some people are willing to take in order to stay alive…

You know my feelings on the 'Warhammer Horror' line by now but I haven't really said anything about that other line of books, 'Warhammer Crime'. And you know what...? I'm actually cool with this series. While 'Warhammer Horror' still feels like it's treading ground already well trod (no matter how good the stories are), 'Warhammer Crime' fills a nice little gap that I haven't seen filled since Abnett's 'Eisenhorn' books and Matthew Farrer's Adeptus Arbites books. There is a whole galaxy, away from the frontlines of the Imperium, and it's a place where people will literally do anything to turn a profit, let alone survive for one more day. It's a place ripe for stories then and the city of Varagantua is the place where most of them will be told. 'Bloodlines' is the first of these stories (I think) and it's a very good one. I'm a big fan of Chris Wraight's books though so I would say that. Just bear that in mind ;o) It is good though, very good.

A book that's opening a new series, with a new setting, is a book that has to do two things at once; set the scene (for this story and those to come) and tell the absolute best story that it can, so that the reader gets a feel for the setting and wants to return and find out what happens next. Wraight gets a helping hand with the first but the second is all him.

The thing with Warhammer 40K fiction is that all hive cities, and other urban sprawls, are pretty much the same aren't they? Rich people live in the nice bits while the poor live where and how they can. Colour most of the rest of the city in various shades of decrepit and it's job done. In that sense then, Wraight doesn't actually have to do an awful lot with this city then, just tick the relevant boxes and call it 'Varagantua'. Don't get me wrong, Varagantua is used to great effect as far as providing that murky backdrop all good detective stories need and I'm sure it will grow into it's own identity as the series progresses. Right now though, it's only the city's name that separates it from all the other grimy Warhammer locales (and maybe that's the whole point, I don't know...) and while there's something to be said for the familiar, this works against the book a little bit as well.

Don't worry too much though, Wraight really turns it on for the story itself and that's the main thing, isn't it? Of course it is.

What we have here is a plot that twists and turns as much as some of the more labyrinthine streets and alleyways that make up the poorer sections of Varagantua. It's a plot that not only demands your attention (blink and you will probably miss something) but rewards it as well, the tiniest detail can blossom into something pivotal, on later pages, and all of it will keep you thinking about what you are reading. There's a lot to take in but it's worth it, just to see the full picture at the end of the book (along with all the explosions that seem to follow Zidarov while he's about his business).

And talking about Zidarov, he's a great lead character to take us through the city and through this case. Not only do we have a great example of the hard bitten detective trying to do the right thing (a trope which is a surprisingly good fit in this universe) but Wraight also uses Zidarov, and his wife, to really look at what it must be like to live in the 41^st Millennium and with all that involves. It's a bitterly hard life but Wraight infuses it with enough hope that you can't help but want better for Zidarov and Milija, even if there is something weird about Zidarov that promises bad things if the Inquisition were to hear about it. It's not just me, Zidarov is a good man but he's not working in the best interests of the Imperium, is he? Anyway... Maybe we'll find out one day.

Varagantua may need to grow into itself a little more (in order to really carry the series) but 'Bloodlines' is ultimately the tale that the 'Warhammer Crime' line needs in order to really kick things off in the best way. Eye-catching spectacle and a plot that sucks you in almost without you realising. I will definitely be reading more 'Warhammer' crime in the hope of more of the same.