Finch

Nebula Award nominee 2009, World Fantasy Award nominee 2010.

In a deserted tenement in an occupied city, two dead bodies lie on a dusty floor as if they have fallen out of the air itself. One corpse is cut in half, the other is utterly unmarked.

The city of Ambergris is ruined, rotten; its population controlled by narcotics, internment camps and acts of terror. But its new masters want this case closed, urgently. Detective John Finch has just one week to solve it or be sent to the camps.

With no ID for the victims, no leads and precious little hope, Finch’s fate hangs in the balance. Why does one of the victims resemble a man thought dead for 100 years? What is the murders’ connection to an attempted genocide nearly 600 years ago? And what is the secret purpose of the eldrich twin towers the occupiers are raising above the city? What Finch is about to discover is going to put him in the cross-hairs of every spy, rebel, informer and traitor in town and quite possibly change Ambergris for ever.

“I can’t remember ever reading a book like Finch. Audacious... extravagant... I’m impressed.“ – Stephen R. Donaldson

“Chinatown meets Naked Lunch... A must for fans of fantasy, great noir writing, or, of course, fungus.” – Joe Abercrombie

"Fungal noir. Steampunk delirium. Paranoid spy thriller... A clear signal, if one were ever needed, that [VanderMeer] remains one of modern fantasy's most original and fearless pioneers." – Richard Morgan