Within Without Review

"Within Without" is the fourth instalment of the Michael Nyquist mysteries, following private eye Michael Nyquist as he is invited to Delirium, the city of a million borders and is charged with finding the lost image of superstar Vince Craven.

General Impressions

I went into this book blindly without having read or even heard of the first books and having barely glanced at the synopsis but I didn't feel adrift for long. The author was able to create a complex and believable world, that sucks you in at once.

I liked and feared Delirium from the onset and adored all its borders. More than stone and magic, each border was made out of completely different things, could appear or disappear almost at will and followed completely different rules and affected the people who crossed in different ways. I loved that tension, as you couldn't not cross them but every crossing was a gamble, from barely any effects to losing your mind or life.

And yet, as weird and wonderful as the city with all its rules and citizens were, the thing that surprised me the most about this book was Michael himself, not because he was smarter or stronger or more honest than any other character I have ever read but because of what he was not. He was not a hero or a specialist in guns or physical combat, an arrogant know-it-all or an inexplicable sex symbol that every statuesque woman half his age wanted. In fact, he doesn't even have a romance plot, which I really enjoyed. He was just a man doing his job to the best of his abilities while dying to be done with his client and get the hell out of there. That's something a reader can actually relate to.

The LGBTQ presence is not too pronounced but at least it's there and is never made a big deal out of. People simply are queer and none of the characters uses that as a target.

More than a mystery or my first example of weird fiction I think I'll always remember this book as a love letter to fairytales and the books that make us, its characters, being real voices in our heads and part of us.

Conclusions

As the story progresses the book keeps getting weirder and weirder until it becomes almost nonsensical. At a certain point Within Without becomes a Russian doll: stories inside stories so it's easy to lose sight of yourself and the plot. And right when you think this couldn't get weirder, it ends. And now guess who has more books to add to their TBR?

Rating: 4/5

Thank you to Angry Robot Books for sending me a copy.