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Friday, December 20, 2002

Title: Painkillers
Author: Simon Ings
Publisher: Bloomsbury



Painkillers is the fifth book by British writer Simon Ings, and it is something of a departure for him. Hot Head and Hot Wire were related novels and very much hi tech cyber fiction, Headlong was somewhere along the same lines, though his style had changed by degrees and the scale was probably smaller and more contemporary, while the City Of The Iron Fish was more of a fantasy piece by comparison. While Headlong, his last novel may have had more of a contemporary feel Painkillers is even more so, set in the late 90s, revolving around the period of when the British handed back Hong Kong to the Chinese.

Adam went to Hong Kong to join the serious crime squad. There he quickly meets some dubious people as well as Eva, the woman he soon marries. Things seem to be going well, until between the surveillance on his boss and the birth of his autistic son he is knocked off track. Work becomes difficult and all his spare time is spent researching miracle cures for Justin. Then with the handover he is back in the UK, runs a small cafe, his son is in a special school, and he thinks that he has left behind the regrettable things he had to do. But with a prominent trial, the mysterious death of his former boss and the return of old "friends" it is clear the past has come back to haunt him.

Painkillers is not the longest of books, about 150 pages of text in this paperback edition. To some degree meandering as we follow the next step in the disintegration of a drunk's life. Switching back and forth the narrative moves from Adam's time in Hong Kong, from his arrival as an up and coming operative through to his corruption, then to London post-Hong Kong and the collapse of what was, in the wake of which Adam has become an alcoholic and relations with Eva are ever strained. While the return of the past has its negatives it also does offer a new lease of life for Adam. The results are part domestic, part thriller and being Simon Ings part science.

The science bit comes from a black box. A mysterious device Adam is introduced to in Hong Kong and turns up again in London in the hands of his mistress. A device corporations are looking for, people have been killed over, and a box which might change Adam's life altogether. Tangled in with this and the narrative as a whole are the ideas of autism, discussions on what autism is thought to be by various parties and some of the ideas that have been put forward to relieve the symptoms. The combination of these elements is what ties this to Ings previous novels at all.

Painkillers is relatively quick paced, given how much it gets into the pages. Being so different from his previous work disorients a little, leaving a little uncertainty as to what to make of it, Painkillers feels like an odd little book in some ways. On the other hand I did enjoy it, even though it took some effort to track a copy down in the end.

RVWR: PTR
December 2002

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