Lady Business

Zinzi has a Sloth on her back, a dirty online 419 scam habit — and a talent for finding lost things. But when her latest client, a little old lady, turns up dead and the cops confiscate her lastpaycheck, she’s forced to take on her least favourite kind of job: missing persons. [source]

Zoo City is the second novel by Lauren Beukes, and tells the story of a world that's been touched with magic, where people who have committed violence against others find themselves with animal familiars. This novel had the potential to be a mess given its premise. After all, we've already had a genre-defining narrative about animals and people and I have yet to hear of another author that does what Philip Pullman does with his humans and dæmons with such grace. I was fascinated to find that Beukes not only takes on the challenge of living up to this narrative and succeeds, but also wins at paying homage to Pullman as well as making the animals and the humans they're attached to her own distinct creation. ( Read more... )

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