I’ve been hearing great things about Lauren Beukes, so I decided to grab her two novels. The first one I read was Zoo City and can see why everyone was raving about it. Her work is original and, being set in Africa, a much different setting than most other science fiction. The setting alone would make the book an interesting read, but Beukes’ writing makes the novel well worth reading. So, let’s step into Zoo City and see what’s going on.

Zinzi December is a finder in Zoo City. It’s called Zoo City, because all the inhabitants have a animal on their back (in Zinzi’s case it’s a sloth). They have committed some crime that has given then an animal totem that is somehow connected to them. There are multiple theories about why the animal is there, but no one knows for sure and no one is quite sure how it even started. Zinzi does odd jobs finding things for people (jewelry, papers, etc.) and helps out with email scams as a sideline. She owes a debt, not just for her crimes, but a huge financial one as well. So, when a record producer offers her a large sum of money to find the missing half of a twin recording team, she decides to break her rule about taking missing persons cases.

Investigating the missing girl leads her back to her old boyfriend and back to the publishing world she used to work in. It also leads to many revelations about the missing girl and her handlers. But after the girl is found, the real surprises start. And Zinzi starts wondering about a couple murders of people for their animal totems and the relationship to some weird replies she receives from her email scam letters.

Overall, the book is well written and fun to read. I had some confusion about the plot in a couple places, but the confusion went away quickly as Beukes was able to write her way out. Zinzi is an original character that is a lot different than most main characters in science fiction novels. She’s flawed and makes bad decisions, but her heart is in the right place (most of the time). Beukes does a great job writing her and makes the whole animal totem background interesting. Recommended.