Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

Lauren Beukes' Arthur C Clarke Award-winning tale of a young woman trapped in a brutal city but looking for a way out ...

'A major, major talent' - George R. R. Martin

Zinzi has a Sloth on her back, a dirty 419 scam habit and a talent for finding lost things. But when a little old lady turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheque, she's forced to take on her least favourite kind of job - missing persons.

Being hired by reclusive music producer Odi Huron to find a pop star should be her ticket out of Zoo City, the festering slum where the criminal underclass and their animal companions reside.

Instead it catapults Zinzi deeper into the maw of a city twisted by crime and magic, where she'll be forced to confront the dark secrets of former lives - including her own.

Beukes's energetic noir phantasmagoria ... crackles with original ideas ... Beukes skilfully employs all the twists of first-rate noir ... powerful indeed - Jeff Vandermeer, New York Times

Beukes delivers a thrill ride that gleefully merges narrative styles and tropes, almost single-handedly pulling the "urban fantasy" subgenre back towards its groundbreaking roots - Publishers Weekly

Energetic and imaginative ... Packed with colour, dark humour and thought-provoking ideas, Zoo City is an absolute must for anyone with a taste for the wilder edges of the genre - SFX Magazine