Just Finished Reading: A Philosophical Investigation by Philip Kerr (FP: 1992)

In near Future London (actually 2013 which is amusing in its own way as comparisons can be drawn on the imagined and the actual) a scientific breakthrough in genetic research allows a simple test to pin-point men who are prone to violent outbursts and periods of uncontrollable aggression – in other words potential future killers. When nationwide tests reveal several hundred cases a national database of potential offenders is created with a system of monitoring to keep subtle tabs on all involved. Despite some ethical objections, as well as calls for every identified male to be locked up for societies protection, the system seems to be working well until the computer system housing the database is hacked into and the database itself heavily damaged. Now someone is using the list to target the men on the list and is eliminating them one by one to save future victims and their families the pain of potential future murders. Sections of the Press applaud the killings and lionise the killer, sections of the police even approve of his or her actions and wonder if they should be expending any great energy in tracking down someone who is effectively doing their work for them. But Chief Inspector ‘Jake’ Jakowicz cannot let the killer get away with it. Apart from offending her sense of what is right, the killer tasks her in ways that previous cases have failed to do so. This serial killer, unusually, is a killer of men, is proud of their achievements and believes themselves to be one of the great philosophers reborn who makes philosophical points with bullets rather than arguments.

This is yet another book that’s being sitting on my shelves for years. I actually picked it up because of the title. Even back then I was interested in philosophy and thought that this might get me into the topic more easily than a dry and dusty academic work. Of course it was nothing of the sort and was instead a borderline SF crime novel. Funnily I almost abandoned it about 50 pages in because the description of hacking was so appallingly bad – farcical in fact. I also found the description of 21st century London to be highly amusing as most of the speculation was way off – with the possible exception of police officers wearing body armour and carrying sub-machine guns! But I persevered and was rewarded by a fairly entertaining, if rather far-fetched and occasionally silly (and once or twice cringingly bad) detective novel with enough twists and turns to keep me interested enough to finish it. Certainly nowhere near the worst crime novel I’ve ever finished but not much more than reasonable overall. The mind of the killer (entered via his notebooks) was deeply disturbing at times and fairly well handed but it was probably the Chief Inspector herself that kept me reading. She was a very interesting, and quite screwed up, character in her own right. I have several of Kerr’s later novels which this book hasn’t managed to put me off. I’m looking forward to see how much his writing has improved since the early 90’s. Quite I bit I hope and expect.