Jigsaw Men

by Gary Greenwood

Review by Stephen Clark
 

With a setting that had my mouth watering before I even picked the book up, Jigsaw Men proved itself to be a satisfying afternoon’s read.  Swallow this scenario down – there WAS a Martian invasion (think Wells’ original not the recent Hollywood take) with England using their technology for the good of the empire.  And Frankenstein’s theorem is used on a grand scale – these ‘jigsaw men’ were used as cannon fodder by the Prussians during the European/Prussian war and continually rejuvenated to fight on. Monsters against Heat guns?  Makes for interesting reading.

That said Gary has interlaced an engaging Detective story through this imaginative world.  The daughter of an esteemed politician goes missing without a trace and Detective Livingstone is getting it in the neck from his captain over the lack of progress.  That is until one of his team recognizes the girl performing on an ‘adult video’ called ‘Love for a Monster’.  It’s the lead they’ve been hoping for until the bullets start to fly and an even darker situation is uncovered.

This is fast-paced, exciting stuff. There’s enough story in this book to make a hum-dinger of a doorstop novel, the kind that would take a serious amount of time to get through. Instead you get a piece that’s condensed into a shade over 100 pages. There’s no deadwood to drift through – what you get is a pure delight between each turn of the page.

Limited to only 300 hardbacks and 500 paperbacks from PS Publishing, it’s worth picking one up before they’re all gone.

Publisher: PS Publishing (2004)

ISBN: 1 902880 77 3  - Paperback (103 pages)

            1 902880 78 1  - Hardcover