There is a civilization hidden deep beneath our own; a place spoken of only in whispers. Chinatown, 1910. The bodies were discovered six months after Max Elliot turned in his badge. All that remained of the victims were piles of flayed skin and organs. The bones of each body had been stolen. This torturous method of execution had only been seen once before by the San Francisco PD, and that case … PD, and that case was never closed.
Confident of a connection between that unsolved case and these new grisly murders, the police turn to the one man they believe can help. With the allure of closure to his own personal tragedy, Max Elliot agrees to reinstatement for one last case. However, the clues lead the unstable detective down a path he never could have imagined. A mysterious drug, a world beneath our own, sex and violence on an unprecedented level, and creatures as ancient as sin itself.
Follow Max as he looks for answers in The City. But remember, all knowledge comes at a price.
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This was an amazing and disturbing tale! Mendes creates an otherworldly environment that is reminiscent of Barker. An incredible mystery thriller that delves into depravity and punishment. I can’t wait for the next book in the series!
I’m a total voyeur. I like to peer into the darkness, but only to watch others play within the abyss. I refuse to do more than dip my toes into the forbidden waters myself though. Like an undertow, the unseen pull of dark energies can easily carry you away and by the time you realize the shore is no longer in sight, it’s too late. This voyeuristic curiosity is probably a huge reason I loved THE CITY by S.C. Mendes. The main character Detective Max Elliot is invited to experience a bizarre world and by proxy, so is the reader. A world where anything is possible and the more depraved you are, the better you’ll survive.
This debut novel—which is so well done, it’s hard to believe it’s Mendes’s first book—begins as a crime noir set in San Francisco’s infamous Chinatown where a grisly murder has the PD baffled and disgusted. Three bodies are found in a flop house. They have been gutted and the bones stolen leaving behind only empty bags of skin—like a shed snake. Besides the flayed flesh, there is only one other clue: a baggie of mysterious gray powder. As our anti-hero Max Elliot searches the gritty streets of Chinatown for answers, the pieces he finds reveal a puzzle that is much stranger than anyone could have guessed.
If all this book turned out to be was a dark murder mystery set in the early 1900s, I would have still been excited to read more. But The City has more twists and turns than a Japanese puzzle box, and after a few chapters it becomes something that is being referred to a Gore Noir—a sub-genre containing elements of both extreme horror mixed in with classic crime mysteries.
We learn that the powder is a bizarre drug made through a process kept secret by an ancient lineage of chemists. These chemists can be found in just one place, and that place is known simply as the city. To enter, one must have the “mark”, and once inside, there is no going back. “Abandon all hope ye who enter” is inscribed on the passageway to hell and the cautious advice is valid for entrance to The City too. If you’re a voyeur like me though, I urge all of you to follow Max into the darkest depths of the human condition.
Many familiar tropes from the horror genre are present in The City. But after the first few chapters, like the genre, those tropes are turned on their heads. It’s like Clive Barker meets Nic Pizzolatto with plenty of depraved death, intense sex, occult imagery, and whatever the hell The Mara are!
Once we transition to this secret city, you can buy any experience you want and, more importantly for me, you can pay to watch anything you want. There are all sorts of peep shows and live executions Max must endure as he navigates the underworld to find not only the killers, but to lay to rest some of his own personal demons. That’s where this book really steps away from the tragic stereotype of extreme horror. This is not a book about sex and death for no reason other than to disgust you. The characters are deeply developed and by the end, I found myself pretty emotionally attached, especially to Ming a young girl living on her own in the wretched city.
There is a whole lot that can be done with the world and characters that S.C. Mendes has created. Now that I’ve been marked by the book, I can’t forget it and I really look forward to more tales from The City!
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I find it very hard to believe this is the first book written by S.C. Mendes but all online searches on this author only bring up this one book. Definitely a must read! The City is the most unique book I’ve read all year and I couldn’t put it down. This is one of those books you are a little leery about assigning a genre too, while “thriller’ does fit, it hardly does the book justice. I think I’ll make a “just a damn good book, don’t worry about the genre’ category” 😉
The author of this book needs a serious psych evaluation. I got the book because of his potential fantasy world appeal but it is so horribly full of gore, torture, graphic deaths of children and evil characters including the protagonist that I could not finish it. And that’s saying something from a person who has witnessed real death in hundreds of ways. The book industry needs a Rating system so that these type of books could be avoided.
Sick, twisted page-turner! I could NOT put it down and hungrily await MORE! Not for the squeamish though.
It got convoluted and lost it’s focus.
I’ve read good reviews of this book but mine isn’t one of them. I didn’t like any of the characters, I found the situations they were put in to be disturbing and grotesque, and I didn’t really care what happened to them. I didn’t finish reading it.
I was disappointed in the overall story. The characters were well rounded, but the story itself seemed disjointed and jumped around too much. This story is mostly about sex and gambling. Also the depravity of humans in their violence to each other. Where killing becomes a sexual act.
I am 31% into the book and am having a hard time continuing. It is slowwww. There are a lot of “scenes” that seem to have no relevance, just a meandering in the underground city. Not sure if I will finish, there is no I can’t wait to turn the page, or what will happen next, but more of when am I going to get somewhere in the book that is fun, exciting and dramatic.