Lockdown by Peter May

Summary:

A CITY IN QUARANTINE

London, the epicenter of a global pandemic, is a city in lockdown. Violence and civil disorder simmer. Martial law has been imposed. No-one is safe from the deadly virus that has already claimed thousands of victims. Health and emergency services are overwhelmed.

A MURDERED CHILD

At a building site for a temporary hospital, construction workers find a bag containing the rendered bones of a murdered child. A remorseless killer has been unleashed on the city; his mission is to take all measures necessary to prevent the bones from being identified.

A POWERFUL CONSPIRACY

D.I. Jack MacNeil, counting down the hours on his final day with the Met, is sent to investigate. His career is in ruins, his marriage over and his own family touched by the virus. Sinister forces are tracking his every move, prepared to kill again to conceal the truth. Which will stop him first – the virus or the killers?

Written over fifteen years ago, this prescient, suspenseful thriller is set against a backdrop of a capital city in quarantine, and explores human experience in the grip of a killer virus.

 My Review:

Imagine writing a novel about a pandemic and then having it rejected as it was unrealistic. Well back in 2005 that is exactly what Pater May had done. He did write a novel and it was rejected and so he left it there.

Fast forward to 2020 and we have a pandemic in the form of the Coronavirus that has swept across the world. Suddenly Lockdown (Riverrun) by Peter May does not seem unrealistic after all.

London is the centre stage for this gripping thriller. The world in is the grip of a pandemic with governments struggling to cope as cities are closed down and violence is spreading, now people are not allowed out of their homes with people are struggling to cope with the lockdown as the death toll mounts across the globe. Sound familiar?
In London the streets are deserted, just litter blowing through the dusty city streets. If you spoke, I am sure it would echo like a dystopian sci-fi film. A new temporary hospital is being built in London to cope with the many patients of the pandemic, it is a building site but the builders find the remains of a body and it falls to D.I. Jack MacNeil from the Met to investigate what looks like the remains of a child. MacNeil is in the final hours of his career, and he has his problems but now there is a killer on the loose and it is not the pandemic.
As D.I. MacNeil begins to investigate the case it becomes apparent that this is not just a murder case but a conspiracy and a cover up. Someone out there is watching his every move and does not want the truth to come out. Time is against MacNeil but he must get to killers before they get to him. For Jack MacNeil his career and his marriage have gone, but why should he care about the case, in a matter of hours he will be out of the force. But he is being watched! They are close and so is the virus.
If you have enjoyed Peter May’s thrillers before, then you will really enjoy Lockdown, and to think that this was written fifteen years ago and here we are with the world in the grip of the Corvid-19 pandemic. When written it really was ahead of its time. A really compelling read. Peter May remains one of my favourite thriller writers and I am delighted to recommend.

416 Pages.

Lockdown by Peter May was published by riverrun and was published on 30^th April 2020 and is available to order online through Waterstones, Amazon and through your local independent bookshop.