Broken Monsters
In the city that’s become a symbol for the death of the American dream, a nightmare killer is unravelling reality. The new thriller from Lauren Beukes, author of The Shining Girls.Detective Gabi Versado has hunted down many monsters during her eight years in Homicide. She’s seen stupidity, corruption and just plain badness. But she’s never seen anything like this.Clayton Broom is a failed artist, and a broken man. Life destroyed his plans, so he’s found new dreams – of flesh and bone made disturbingly, beautifully real.Detroit is the decaying corpse of the American Dream. Motor-city. Murder-city. And home to a killer opening doors into the dark heart of humanity.A killer who wants to make you whole again…
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Harper
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2014
Copyright © Lauren Beukes 2014
Cover design layout © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015
Background wall texture © Shutterstock.com Cover photograph of woman by Henry Steadman
Lauren Beukes asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition © JULY 2014 ISBN: 9780007464623
Version: 2015-03-30
Contents
I Dreamed I Was a Dream of a Dream
People Who Live in Gingerbread Houses
Behind the scenes of Broken Monsters
Photos from Lauren’s research trip to Detroit
I dreamed about a boy with springs for feet so he could jump high. So high I couldn’t catch him. But I did catch him. But then he wouldn’t get up again.
I tried so hard. I got him new feet. I made him something beautiful. More beautiful than you could imagine.
But he wouldn’t get up. And the door wouldn’t open.
The body. The-body-the-body-the-body, she thinks. Words lose their meaning when you repeat them. So do bodies, even in all their variations. Dead is dead. It’s only the hows and whys that vary. Tick them off: Exposure. Gunshot. Stabbing. Bludgeoning with a blunt instrument, sharp instrument, no instrument at all when bare knuckles will do. Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. It’s Murder Bingo! But even violence has its creative limits.
Gabriella wishes someone had told that to the sick fuck who did this. Because this one is Yoo-neeq. Which happens to be the name of a sex worker she let off with a warning last weekend. It’s most of what the DPD does these days. Hands out empty warnings in The. Most. Violent. City. In. America. Duh-duh-duh. She can just hear her daughter’s voice – the dramatic horror-movie chords Layla would use to punctuate the words. All the appellations Detroit carries. Dragging its hefty symbolism behind it like tin cans behind a car marked ‘Just Married’. Does anyone even do that any more, she wonders, tin cans and shaving cream? Did anyone ever? Or was it something they made up, like diamonds are forever, and Santa Claus in Coca-Cola red, and mothers and daughters bonding over fat-free frozen yogurts. She’s found that the best conversations she has with Layla are the ones in her head.
‘Detective?’ the uniform says. Because she’s just standing there staring down at the kid in the deep shadow of the tunnel, her hands jammed in the pockets of her jacket. She left her damn gloves in the car and her fingers are numb from the chill wind sneaking in off the river. Winter baring its teeth even though it’s only gone November. ‘Are you—’
