Created by Paul Johnston
How can you not love a PI named QUINTILIAN DALRYMPLE?
But this series by Scottish author Paul Johnston has way more going for it than just a protagonist with a peculiar monicker.
Imagine Edinburgh as an Orwellian, totalitarian independent city-state in 2020 and that’s where you’ll find this fellow. A blues-haunted P.I. (music is a big no-no in this cock-eyed future, of course, where television and private cars are also banned) on the trail of a brutal murderer, former cop Quint must face a demon from his past in the form of the Ear, Nose and Throat Man, a vicious serial killer. Has he returned to wreak more havok?
The series has progressed since then, gathering plenty of acclaim along the way for the author’s all-too-believable (dystopian ) world-building and deft characterization, with 2019’s Impolitic Corpses taking place in 2038. So, I guess we can breathe a sigh of release that the future Johnston predicted in 1999 hasn’t quite come to pass…
Although some people seem to be working really hard on it.
The author also writes a series about Greek private eye Alex Mavros.
UNDER OATH
- “Johnston’s nightmarish Edinburgh is so densely imagined that it’ll linger in the memory long after the plot is forgotten.”
— Kirkus Reviews
NOVELS
- The Body Politic (1999) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
- The Boneyard (1999) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
- Water of Death (1999) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
- The Blood Tree (2000) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
- The House of Dust (2001) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
- Heads or Hearts (2015) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
- Skeleton Blues (2016) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
- Impolitic Corpses (2019) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
RELATED LINKS
- Down Those Mean Skies: SciFi P.I.’s
This site’s listing of private eyes who boldly go where no dick has gone before….
Respectfully submitted by Keith Logan.
Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk