Carrie Patel

There is a moment in The Buried Life in which the protagonist, Inspector Liesl Malone, stumbles upon a ruined library. Carrie Patel describes the building, the jumbled stacks and scattered books, with reverence. Here is the repository of civilization: People, like Malone, and societies, like that which built the library, come and go, but by recording and storing our knowledge, humanity endures. Fittingly, the next scene involves gunshots. The pen and the sword, both sources of power. This is show more one of the many strange juxtapositions in a strange novel, The Buried Life (Angry Robot, July 29, 2014).

The setting for The Buried Life is unique: The underground city of Recoletta, approximately 300 years from the present. The ambiguous "Cataclysm" destroyed modern civilization. Whatever was involved, which may include war, given characters' use of "antebellum" to describe the pre-Cataclysm era, it provoked in survivors an intense desire for privacy and security. Cities moved underground, and civilization reverted to Victorian technology. (Patel, perhaps unwittingly, outs herself as a historical materialist, as her society's mode of production, Victorian, appears to dictate vaguely Victorian mores.) Patel borrows her title, of course, from the nineteenth century British poet Matthew Arnold.

The plot involves Inspector Malone's investigation into the murders of several members of the Council, the oligarchy that rules Recoletta. Deprived of her official sanction to investigate by the secretive Council, Malone acts independently, with her new partner, Sundar, providing backup. Jane Lin, laundress to the ruling class, becomes involved when she stumbles upon the murderer. And all three are brought face-to-face with Roman Arnault, the elite's "fixer." Suffice it to say that their paths cross and their fates are intertwined; more cannot be said without giving away the entire plot.

Readers will be drawn to The Buried Life because of the setting. The "Cataclysm" is mysterious; we want to know what happened. Patel provides readers a taste of the back story throughout the book, just enough to whet their appetites. The underground setting is intriguing, too. I expected a lot of slinking through dark tunnels but, while my skulking quota was satisfied (2.5 incidents of skulking per page), the underground element is not fully realized. Given that the surface world is habitable and that citizens choose to live underground, it should not be surprising that Recoletta is a homey enough place. Indeed, it's downright pleasant, with skylights that permit sunshine to reach the streets and enable Recolettans to keep up the day/night schedule "surface dwellers" enjoy. In other words, readers curious about Recoletta will find that it's not much different from their own, albeit underground.

Patel's characters are serviceable. Malone, the flinty detective, has a soul; a flashback to her years in the orphanage provides some insight into her character. Malone's partner, Sundar, a former actor, serves as a handy foil. Patel uses Sundar as a recipient of Malone's wisdom, thus shrouding explanations intended for the reader. Arnault is a puzzle, as he is meant to be, and Jane's journalist friend, Frederick, provides some comic relief. Jane is the most interesting character, an entrepreneur of sorts whose place in the thick of things is a result not only of who she knows--Frederick, Malone, Arnault--but also a result of a filial connection to the larger plot. Patel nicely leaves the characters in a situation that demands a sequel and will have readers demanding to know what happens next.

The Buried Life, Patel's first novel, is enjoyable, if not quite everything a reader might want. My hope is that Patel will go for greater (metaphorical) depth as she continues the series, both with her characters and especially the setting, which has potential. Patel picks up the pace in the second half of the book, and readers will find themselves wanting to know what's going on behind the murders. Vaguely steampunk-ish but not quite classifiable, The Buried Life is recommended for readers comfortable straddling the border of fantasy and sci-fi; dedicated fantasists and hard sci-fi fans may want to go down another hole. show less

I read and blurbed Carrie Patel's debut novel The Buried Life earlier this year, so I was excited when she sent me a copy of the next book, Cities and Thrones. The setting for the series is the east coast of America, long after a devastating apocalypse. Society has rebuilt to 19th century levels, with cities like Recoletta (the location of the first book) completely underground. The Buried Life resulted in a revolution where the corrupt heads of power were tossed out. A lot of books would show more end there, happily ever after, etc. What Patel does is fantastic--she shows how the usurper is completely inept and how that paves the way for yet another revolution.

There is a lot going on in the series, but fundamentally they are mystery novels. They read fast through a combination of the suspense of mystery and the action of urban fantasy. The publisher, Angry Robot, really excels at finding and promoting unique books that straddle genres like this.

Patel's two leads remain strong. Malone is now the chief of police, forced to work closely with new leader Sato even though she does not support him at all. She genuinely loves and wants to save her city. Meanwhile, Jane has fled into the countryside where sparse towns on the surface grow the food desperately needed by Recoletta. I like how Patel shows the distinct cities and cultures that developed in these settlements during their time of isolation. Jane is dragged into the conspiracies of the outside world as news trickles in the civilization in Recoletta is disintegrating.

I think my biggest complaint is that the ending is a bit of a cliffhanger. The stakes are set up quite high for book three. show less

I wish I had some of what Beth Cato was on when she called this "a gripping read from start to finish." At no point at the start, finish, or in between was I gripped. This novel is so bland that you could throw a load of hot chilies on it and it would still be bland. It is a Victorianesque mystery (not fantasy as labelled on the cover) concerning the murders of some upper-echelon folk, while the detectives trying to investigate are blocked by the people they are trying to protect. There is show more also a canny maid who gets mixed up in the intrigue. I use that term loosely and in its noun form as there is nothing intriguing about the story. The characters have no character. Nothing is developed or explained in an adequate or interesting way. Then there are things that the author seemed to put in to try to make her story more interesting or different, but are completely arbitrary and irrelevant--for example, having society living underground. The story takes place after an undefined cataclysm, but some people do live above ground; there's no indication that there's anything wrong with the surface. So...why? The best I can say about this book is that the actual prose is competent. It would probably get high marks as an English class assignment, but I don't know how it got published. You could generously call it a cozy, but it was far too cozy for me. show less

Carrie Patel's debut novel, The Buried Life is a post-apocalyptic underground murder mystery with elements of political intrigue and revolution thrown in for good measure. Set in the subterranean city of Recoletta, the story starts off with the murder of one of the members of the wealthy "whitenail" upper crust of society, and winds its way through twists and turns until it reaches a literally explosive conclusion. With an atmospheric setting, an intriguing mystery, and fairly well-drawn show more characters, The Buried Life is a fast-paced book with a lot to offer that is only marred by a couple of minor missteps.

The story in the book is itself somewhat interesting in that there are two viewpoint protagonists. The first, as one would expect in a murder mystery, is a police inspector named Liesl Malone who is assigned to investigate the death of Professor Werner Cahill, a historian from the upper crust of Recolettan society. From the start, this is a complicated case because it turns out that in Patel's imagined future society, the study of history is a tightly regulated and controlled activity, with most citizens kept entirely ignorant of the events of the past. Almost all historians work for the powerful and secretive Directorate of Preservation, which jealously guards its secrets, and aren't about to cooperate with a mere police inspector and her rookie partner just because one of their members has been killed.

The other protagonist is Jane Lin, a laundress with a high society clientele who more or less tumbles into the story by being in the wrong place at the wrong time and seeing something that some powerful people think she should not have. In some ways, Jane is a more interesting character than Liesl - while Liesl is a fairly straight-forward headstrong maverick police officer, Jane is a much more subtle character, often unsure of herself and unsure of her position in society. Unfortunately, Jane's portion of the story is mostly carried by her relationships with Fredrick Anders, her newspaper editor neighbor, and a roguish and somewhat mysterious figure named Roman Arnault who seems to be connected to every underhanded act in the city. Because Jane is used as a conduit to bring these characters into the story, and a linchpin to link them all together, her own story sometimes seems to get a short shrift.

One of the elements that makes The Buried Life what it is is the underground city of Recoletta itself, which is almost a character in its own right. Almost omnipresent in the book, the city is a brooding presence in the background of every scene, with dark steam-filled tunnels, gated communities full of imposing mansions, ballrooms filled with lights, and dour government buildings. The atmosphere provided by the city is gritty, and sometimes almost Dickensian in feel, with the sensibilities of the early grimy and often unfair years of the industrial revolution. What makes the city even more interesting is the fact that despite the crowding and the inequality and the grind of the life lived by its denizens, the fact that its residents continue to live underground is purely a result of cultural inertia - fairly deep in the book it is revealed that the surface is not only habitable, it is inhabited. Whatever disaster drove humanity into underground cities for survival apparently happened so long ago that people had been able to return to recolonize the outside world. Although relatively few scenes take place on the surface, the knowledge that it is there makes the city seem even more confining and oppressive.

The murder mystery at the core of the book works well, rolling along nicely from the start, and unfolding into conspiracy laden political intrigue in short order. Liesl's investigation is first hampered by the intransigence of the Directorate of Preservation, but is soon obstructed by the Council, the ruling body of the city. Forced to conduct their inquiries on the sly, Liesl and her rookie partner Rafe Sundar face official and unofficial resistance at every turn but still push forward as the body count rises and the web of conspirators becomes more and more apparent. The only real misstep the book makes is in the resolution of the murder mystery portion of the book where Liesl and Jane both almost simultaneously run into different people prepared to explain the web of political deceit that resulted in the murders. One person explaining the solution would have been a mild let down, but having two different characters do it to two different protagonists simply causes all of the built up tension to deflate into silliness. The book recovers a bit at the end with some dramatic political developments and a hint of what could be coming in future volumes, so all is not lost, but the flawed resolution of the murder mystery still drags the book down a bit.

Overall, The Buried Life is a fine debut novel from an author who shows a lot of promise. There are so many strong elements to this book that the few flaws are glaring, but can be looked past. The murder mystery is generally well-presented (albeit with one significant problem), the setting is interesting, the characters are mostly well-developed, and the underlying political drama is intriguing. Patel handles all of these elements with an ease that many veteran authors would have a hard time matching. The end result of all of this is a tightly-written, fast-paced and very good novel that will scratch both your mystery itch and your post-apocalyptic dystopia itch.

This review has also been posted to my blog Dreaming About Other Worlds. show less