In 2005, crime writer Peter May approached his publisher with a novel idea that was rejected, due to the fact that the publishers felt that the idea of what takes place in his novel is too far-fetched of an idea to work. 15 years later, the book is finally released. This is lockdown.
Peter May was inspired by the history of the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 and at the current news headlines of the Avian Flu fear of 2005 (remember that) Peter May was inspired to write a novel of a murder mystery that takes place during a pandemic. The idea was put on the shelf for 15 years until now in 2020, the most unusual time to be alive, Corona virus has locked down the country, politicians are making rules and breaking them and widespread panic and confusion has infected people at the same pace as the virus is infecting the unfortunate public. So it’s more than a perfect time to release a new book about a pandemic crime novel.
Lockdown follows Macneil, a Scottish hard boiled DC who is retiring from his job in the midst of a contagion that has closed the country down. His last case follows him investigating the appearance of a bag of bones found on a construction site. We follow his journey in the not so normal consequences that follow a murder in the worst of times to commit a crime.
With a set up like that, it’s almost impossible to not wanna get hooked when reading this book. Wondering all the possible outcomes that can come from this unlikely murder story. The problem is that despite a great surface to work on, it only touches the surface of being something interesting. After a brilliant execution of what can only be described as an end times, you think of what a tense atmospheric nightmare you are about to go through with this guy. Only to find that…It’s actually..Pretty standard.
The problem with the novel is that with an idea as interesting and vast as this, you automatically think of what the novel is gonna do or go. But it falls into the same old, tired cliches of a modern crime novel. Hardly any of the danger of the contagion is touched upon even in a rather difficult moment which should grab you by your chest and throw you back, but instead all it does is fall flat on a somewhat basic storytelling level.
At times the dialogue reads like a weekday soap, with exaggerated characters that don’t really elevate the plot or add anything to the drama. But is mainly there to add filler to a story that should have had so much more. The mystery doesn’t keep you guessing enough or have any interest into the intrigue of the murder. And as problematic and hard boiled as our main protagonist is, we don’t get a sense of him being in any real danger than what he would actually expect to get himself involved in, if there wasn’t even a pandemic on in the first place.
This is a book that will no doubt be donated to my local charity shop once i’ve done reading it. It’s not a book that will last with me for the time being. And when the book holds more of the problems i hate in modern crime novels than it does an actual crime story that should want to have me scared to turn the page, then the book hasn’t sold itself to me.
With a tagline that said “The crime thriller that predicted the world in quarantine” It honestly should have just stayed locked away.