![]() ![]() “I am not a detective,” he keeps insisting. ![]() Gradually, we understand that Finch’s ordeal, to which we return every few chapters, is at the end of the story - all the rest is flashback. In particular, Finch’s interrogator wants to know if he has met the rebel leader, the Lady in Blue, whose charismatic radio broadcasts have almost died out. ![]() His new novel, “Finch,” opens with a human detective, John Finch, being tortured by someone who demands information about the “rebels” - the dispersed remnants of the armies of Ambergris’ two great trading houses, Hoegbotton and Frankwrithe & Lewden, whose ill-fated invasion of a nearby desert empire six years ago gave the gray caps their chance. Using slave labor, they are building two gigantic towers that will create a “door” in time and space, so that they can either return to their home planet or bring in reinforcements. The “gray caps” - mushroom-like aliens driven underground centuries ago by the city’s human founders - have risen and seized control. ![]() Readers of Jeff VanderMeer’s fantasy stories about the city of Ambergris (“City of Saints & Madmen,” “Shriek: An Afterword”) will hardly recognize the old place in this noir sequel. ![]()
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