Skullcrack City

S.P. Doyle works at a bank and is slowly being worn down by the job. He decides to dismantle the whole corrupt system from within. In the company files he finds something he is not equipped to understand, and before he can act on it he is framed for murder.

What follows is a chase across a city run by crooked conglomerates. Along the way Doyle meets zealots high on drugs, a pet turtle that talks, and a secretive group whose members are no longer quite human.

Doyle is also dependent on Hex, a designer drug, and it clouds his judgement at the worst moments. The book holds him to account for that rather than excusing it.

The genre is horror shaded with bizarro fiction, built on the engine of a thriller. The pace is fast, the imagery grotesque and the tone often comic. Whatever laughs the opening chapters supply, the ending lands as considerably sadder.