Lockdown by Peter May

Trapped in a city under lockdown, on his last day of work, DI MacNeil races to solve a child's murder before his time runs out.

This novel has been touted as being prescient, as seeing a city under lockdown at a time when that was considered completely implausible. It was so implausible that Peter May has had this book written for the best part of fifteen years, just waiting for the publishing world to catch up.

However, as I was reading it, it felt like the lockdown was incidental. The illness itself plays a part in the storyline, but - perhaps because all the characters we follow have authorisation to go anywhere they want anyway - the lockdown never feels as real and oppressive as it should.

I also noticed that we spend far longer on the backgrounds of the male protagonist and antagonist than we do on the background of the female (crippled, minority) love interest. Just a note.

Also, slight cliffhanger at the end, just so you're prewarned.

Spoiler below on MacNeil's character and actions;

I also absolutely hated MacNeil for one thing; knowing that he has been exposed to the illness and is likely already sick, he deliberately breeches the only part of London that has thus far remained free of infection, potentially condemning thousands of people to death - the exact same thing as the villain of the piece has done.

Overall, an interesting read and a perfect gift for crime fans, but not nearly as visionary as it's being touted to be.

Written over fifteen years ago, this prescient, suspenseful thriller is set against a backdrop of a capital city in quarantine, and explores human experience in the grip of a killer virus.

'They said that twenty-five percent of the population would catch the flu. Between seventy and eighty percent of them would die. He had been directly exposed to it, and the odds weren't good.'

A CITY IN QUARANTINE

London, the epicenter of a global pandemic, is a city in lockdown. Violence and civil disorder simmer. Martial law has been imposed. No-one is safe from the deadly virus that has already claimed thousands of victims. Health and emergency services are overwhelmed.

A MURDERED CHILD

At a building site for a temporary hospital, construction workers find a bag containing the rendered bones of a murdered child. A remorseless killer has been unleashed on the city; his mission is to take all measures necessary to prevent the bones from being identified.

A POWERFUL CONSPIRACY

D.I. Jack MacNeil, counting down the hours on his final day with the Met, is sent to investigate. His career is in ruins, his marriage over and his own family touched by the virus. Sinister forces are tracking his every move, prepared to kill again to conceal the truth. Which will stop him first - the virus or the killers?