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The Dog-Faced Gods #1
A Matter of Blood
In a world steeped in darkness, a new breed of evil has fallen…
London’s ruined economy has pushed everyone to the breaking point, and even the police rely on bribes and deals with criminals to survive. Detective Inspector Cass Jones struggles to keep integrity in the police force, but now, two gory cases will test his mettle. A gang hit goes wrong, leaving two schoolboys dead, and a serial killer calling himself the Man of Flies leaves a message on his victims saying “nothing is sacred.”
Then Cass’ brother murders his own family before committing suicide. Cass doesn’t believe his gentle brother did it. Yet when evidence emerges suggesting someone killed all three of them, a prime suspect is found—Cass himself.
Common links emerge in all three cases, but while Cass is finding more questions than answers, the Man of Flies continues to kill...
London’s ruined economy has pushed everyone to the breaking point, and even the police rely on bribes and deals with criminals to survive. Detective Inspector Cass Jones struggles to keep integrity in the police force, but now, two gory cases will test his mettle. A gang hit goes wrong, leaving two schoolboys dead, and a serial killer calling himself the Man of Flies leaves a message on his victims saying “nothing is sacred.”
Then Cass’ brother murders his own family before committing suicide. Cass doesn’t believe his gentle brother did it. Yet when evidence emerges suggesting someone killed all three of them, a prime suspect is found—Cass himself.
Common links emerge in all three cases, but while Cass is finding more questions than answers, the Man of Flies continues to kill...
352 pages, Paperback
First published March 18, 2010
51 people are currently reading
2470 people want to read
About the author
Sarah Pinborough
89 books7,908 followersSarah Pinborough is a New York Times bestselling and Sunday Times Number one and Internationally bestselling author who is published in over 30 territories worldwide. Having published more than 25 novels across various genres, her recent books include Behind Her Eyes, now a smash hit Netflix limited series, Dead To Her, now in development with Amazon Studios, and 13 Minutes and The Death House in development with Compelling Pictures. Sarah lives in the historic town of Stony Stratford, the home of the Cock and Bull story, with her dog Ted. Her next novel, Insomnia, is out in 2022. You can follow Sarah on Twitter at @sarahpinborough.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 140 reviews
August 3, 2025
Every Sarah Pinborough book I read just increases my fascination with her writing. Suspense, thriller, young adult, rewritten fairytales? All mastered. Dystopian, dramatic police procedural? Now, check.
I was interested to see how she would write from a straight man’s point of view. All I can say is that damn, she really is that good. Cass is an intriguing narrator—deeply flawed, kind of an asshole, way too hard on himself, and brilliant.
This novel is completely engrossing. Sarah P lights up every subject and genre she touches. Her talent is truly undeniable.
As the story begins to race towards its conclusion, I wondered how the hell she would be able to tie up the loose ends. I knew there would be sequels, but this was supposed to be IT for this story. Many books in series like to draw out the plots, whether that be for monetary reasons or poor narrative flows. She does not do this at all. The only true cliffhanger to speak of is one introduced at the very end. This is as it should be. Everything we needed to know in this one is wrapped up well, and I am so eager to see what Cass gets up to next.
Fantastic ending, as always.
I was interested to see how she would write from a straight man’s point of view. All I can say is that damn, she really is that good. Cass is an intriguing narrator—deeply flawed, kind of an asshole, way too hard on himself, and brilliant.
This novel is completely engrossing. Sarah P lights up every subject and genre she touches. Her talent is truly undeniable.
As the story begins to race towards its conclusion, I wondered how the hell she would be able to tie up the loose ends. I knew there would be sequels, but this was supposed to be IT for this story. Many books in series like to draw out the plots, whether that be for monetary reasons or poor narrative flows. She does not do this at all. The only true cliffhanger to speak of is one introduced at the very end. This is as it should be. Everything we needed to know in this one is wrapped up well, and I am so eager to see what Cass gets up to next.
Fantastic ending, as always.
October 3, 2023
“Don’t trust them, Cassius Jones. They have their own agenda.”
This BOOK. Cass is the type of antihero you can’t help but root for. I tried to slow my reading, stopping every few chapters, but this story consumed my thoughts. The layers upon layers of relationships, murderers, and police intrigue was phenomenal.
How does SP understand human behavior so well? She brought these characters to life with so much clarity and depth.
PNR-lite
Police detectives
London setting
Murder/mystery/thriller
Excellent backstories
Ends with slight cliffhanger
Cass was a good copper because he thought like a criminal, and that was all there was to it.
This is not a feel good story. This is not a romance. This is a heavy, dark, brilliantly written, police drama with multi-layered characters that you may or may not like.
I’ve already purchased book two and can’t wait to get started!!
Gifted to me for no reason other than just because. 💜 Thank you for introducing me to this amazing story Dan!
This BOOK. Cass is the type of antihero you can’t help but root for. I tried to slow my reading, stopping every few chapters, but this story consumed my thoughts. The layers upon layers of relationships, murderers, and police intrigue was phenomenal.
How does SP understand human behavior so well? She brought these characters to life with so much clarity and depth.
PNR-lite
Police detectives
London setting
Murder/mystery/thriller
Excellent backstories
Ends with slight cliffhanger
Cass was a good copper because he thought like a criminal, and that was all there was to it.
This is not a feel good story. This is not a romance. This is a heavy, dark, brilliantly written, police drama with multi-layered characters that you may or may not like.
I’ve already purchased book two and can’t wait to get started!!
Gifted to me for no reason other than just because. 💜 Thank you for introducing me to this amazing story Dan!
June 7, 2013
I've been a huge Sarah Pinborough fan for years now, but all I've read is her Leisure published horror. I was aware of this trilogy, but not until now, not until Ace brought them over stateside (with some gorgeous cover art) and to a local library was able to check them out. This book, the first in trilogy, was well worth the wait and completely lived up to my expectations. Set in the future so near and so dark and so very believable, this reads like an intense serial killer police procedural (which wouldn't normally be my thing, unless done exceptionally well as this was) with something entirely different, much more complex and yet that much darker underneath. This book kept me turning pages and the second it was over, left me desperately wanting to know what happens next. That's exactly what part one of something should be. I'm not a huge fan of series, the only one I enjoy and follow is John Connolly's superb Charlie Parker series, and A Matter of Blood with its darkness and its brooding protagonist and its strong hints of supernatural really invites the favorable and complimentary comparison. No surprise Connolly provides praise blurb for this edition. In a genre dominated by men, it's pretty phenomenal to see a woman (and such a lovely woman...this is not meant as a sexist remark, more to do with juxstaposition, outer light inner darkness, that sort of thing) to totally hold her own and then some. I do miss the horror tales, but Pinborough has the talent and the chops to hop genres with ease and confidence and I'm a fan that's sure to follow. Very entertaining and enjoyable book. Highly recommended.
April 3, 2011
An excellent blend between soft apocalypse, crime noir, urban fantasy, horror and new weird. A very good read. And the cliches are not cliches in the end.
June 20, 2013
An engaging example of supernatural noir set in an economically ruined London of the near future. Mysteries chase enigmas as the story unfolds, keeping the suspense high and even the most jaded mystery lover guessing.
An excellent start to what will no doubt be a must read series.
An excellent start to what will no doubt be a must read series.
December 11, 2019
Started out sooo good, got worse and worse and worse
October 22, 2012
This is one of those reviews where I have to be careful of hyperbole. Each year I read a novel by an author I have never read before that knocks my socks off. This novel was the 2012 entry and thankfully there are two more books in this trilogy. This British import is trying to find a north American publisher and there are rumors that Penguin is releasing them under the title Forgotten Gods. Personally if you like original horror and speculative fiction specifically Dystopias, serial killer novels and all around Crime novels don’t wait for them to get their act together order this on the internet.
I discovered this novel from an article about the ending of the trilogy in Rue Morgue magazine. The plot sounded interesting but I admit it was the author mentioning that the trilogy had a champion in F.Paul Wilson that got my attention. I have four books into the Repairman Jacks books as Pinborough pointed out that Wilson was not only an influence but he was a fan helping to get the books published. What interested me is the dark dystopic environment that this brutal sounding crime novel was set in.
Rue morgue described the trilogy as an apocalyptic murder mystery, but having now read the book I felt the first book was light on apocalypse but heavy on dystopia. Not to worry end-of –the-World novel fans, the undoing of the world gets a strong foundation in this dark brutal hard boiled supernatural crime novel. It is an understatement to say that darker days are coming.
This is the story of Detective inspector Cass Jones, who is hiding a drug habit and depression after he returns to the work in wake of an undercover assignment gone horribly wrong. His life is rough, hated by criminals and distrusted by the authorities. Not your typical heroic cop character, he is knee deep in a murder investigation of two kids who were gunned down in the street and attracting intense media coverage.
When one of his co-workers gets ill, he has to take over the investigation of a series of brutal murders. The crime scenes are well staged but also covered in an unnatural amount of flies. The killer refers to himself as the man of flies, and managed to somehow implant eggs of maggots under the eyelids of the victims without damaging their eyes.
All this before Cass finds out his brother has killed himself and his family. When Cass is framed for the murder of his brother, he begins to suspect the cases are connected.
How does this relate to the end of the world? Well, this novel is set in very dark times a very near future dystopia of future Britain that survives an economic collapse by surrendering to a mysterious cabal known as “The Bank.” The atmosphere of the novel has a dark surreal feel, I pictured everything with a grey filter that made Oregon winters seem like southern California. I also have the feeling that this first novel was meant to establish the characters while the next two will deal with grander issues.
Like Wilson’s Repairman Jack series I would define this novel as horror , but also as Weird Crime. That is not the only comparison I think is valid to Wilson’s Jack series. Like that series this has intricately woven plot, but it also has a much darker tone. The tone makes all the difference in this novel, I mean for one thing Repairman Jack is a hero we can root for. The world that Pinborough has created here is filled with very dark shades of grey with almost zero characters worth rooting for. Oh you’ll be interested in them; you’ll want to keep turning pages.
On top of all those elements this novel also has a powerful plot line about a serial killer, including one of the creepiest serial killers I have read about since Brite’s Exquisite Corpse, but at the same time were talking about a novel with a subtle social conscience.
It is one of those novels that dragged me in quickly through the pages, creating dark moment of suspense that were so powerful I wanted to jump in the book and warn characters. There were several moments that made me uncomfortable enough that as a horror author myself I dog eared the pages so I could go back at marvel at how she created such gnarly atmospheric moments.
I can’t spoil it, but the Man of Flies has a moment early with a homeless boy and his dog that was gut-wrenching and awful. I loved it! Cass had a moment where he thought he saw the ghostly imagine of his dead brother, nothing ended up being there but Pinborough did such a wonderful job that I felt his very natural fear at thinking he had just seen his dead friend. Prime examples of master level horror writing by an author I somehow never read before.
Am I sold on Pinborough or the series? Of course I am sold on both. Is this the best novel I have read all year. No, probably not the best but I am sure it is my favorite. What are you waiting for?
May 20, 2013
Well Sarah Pinborough has done it again hasnt she? Wow. Loved this book and its highly entertaing. And a bit dark. As I'm in a dark place occasionally at the moment I really did go with the flow right along with it. There is the Supernatural touch but mostly its just a great story. In a time when recession has left the world in a very dark place,everyone owes "The Bank". Cass Jones, detective, has his own worries. Two boys dead after a shooting and the pesky serial killer known as the "man of flies" causing him a headache he could do without what with all the personal stuff he's putting up with on top. Then his dead brother REALLY puts the boot in....
A mystery. A thriller. A supernatural tale. All and none of these things as usual for Ms Pinborough - you can't put her in a box because she just breaks out of it and sticks her tongue out at you as she runs off to write something else to bend your brain. I love it. I can relate to it. I hope she writes forever into eternity. I'll be there.
A mystery. A thriller. A supernatural tale. All and none of these things as usual for Ms Pinborough - you can't put her in a box because she just breaks out of it and sticks her tongue out at you as she runs off to write something else to bend your brain. I love it. I can relate to it. I hope she writes forever into eternity. I'll be there.
October 31, 2014
So I ordered this from my trusty local bookseller and when I picked it up she gave the blurb at the back a read, went quiet, and then said 'Jaysus Christ.' Why, yes, this is dark. It's crime dark and it's horror dark and even a touch of dystopian sci-fi dark. The writing combines psychological tension with grimy physicality and the plot is a police-procedural serial killer story that gradually reveals itself to be murky urban fantasy. It'll darken your mood, but it's a great read.
February 13, 2020
You know that feeling when you read a book, love some parts of it, but can't pinpoint why exactly you didn't like others?
Yeah. That.
Yeah. That.
April 5, 2011
http://www.rantingdragon.com/a-matter...
A Matter of Blood is the first installment in Sarah Pinborough’s Dog-Faced Gods trilogy, a heart-pounding mix of horror and crime fiction, with a dash of good old speculative fiction thrown in. Cass Jones is a bitter Detective Investigator for the London police force, where every officer quietly takes kickbacks from the local mobsters as a matter of course. Cass’s marriage is falling apart, he’s haunted by a nasty history, and he’s got a bit of a drug habit—and right now he’s also desperately overworked by two violent case loads that aren’t adding up. The only thing that is adding up is the vast amounts of money held by The Bank, a seemingly omniscient corporation founded a few years ago by faceless billionaires in order to rescue the global economy from a recession. And now, for some reason, The Bank is interested in Cass.
Cass Jones, the Detective Inspector
Cass Jones is perfect. Not in the sense of a perfect man—no, he’s nowhere near perfect as a man—but he is definitely a perfect character. His flaws range from adultery to unkindness to murder, and while normally that would make for a grim protagonist to follow, Pinborough manages to transform Cass from a ruthless pig to a guilt-ridden, flawed, and sympathetic human. Cass has made some bad choices in his past and he makes some bad choices in A Matter of Blood, but the choices are always understandable. Sometimes his memories are painful to read, but that’s only because Cass’s own pain feels real.
The secondary characters are excellent, as well. Dr. Hask, the criminal psychologist, only makes an appearance a couple times in the novel, but his voice is cool and intelligent, and I hope we hear more from him in the next two books. Bright has the same cunning malevolence as Neil Gaiman’s Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar in Neverwhere. Cass’s sergeant, Claire, verges on annoying with her chirpy optimism, but the tense relationship she has with Cass makes her worth reading about.
Creepy and thrilling
A Matter of Blood lurks on the edge of horror while delivering the same heart-pounding suspense as a thriller. Some chapters, particularly the ones about The Bank, reminded me of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series. The supernatural elements are really, really creepy, and Pinborough sent shivers down my spine without even resorting to gore (although she includes that, too). Pinborough’s writing is lean, and thankfully, she doesn’t offer too many details on Cass’s dystopian world beyond the necessities; the dark atmosphere is all you need to understand the setting. The police work all struck me as believable without being dry, and the corruption in the force turns what could have been another typical crime thriller into something truly desolate and gripping.
A slow start
A Matter of Blood’s major flaw is its slow start. Pinborough strategically shifts viewpoints throughout the novel, and though most of the time that works, the beginning of the book focuses all too much on the finality of death and the philosophical musings of a psychotic serial killer. I wasn’t really immersed in the plot until after the first thirty or fifty pages; up until then, Cass Jones just seems like a sad and desperate copper. Once his cases start developing, though, the story really gets going. By the second half of the book, I could hardly put it down.
Why should you read this book?
This is no airy fantasy. In fact, it’s hardly even science fiction, since the novel’s only set a few years after 2010. But this dystopian page-turner brings together the best of suspense thrillers, horror, and police procedural. In A Matter of Blood, the supernatural elements remain comparably subtle, but it’s clear that in the next two books of the trilogy, those elements will come to the forefront. This is a departure from my usual reads, but I can’t wait for Pinborough’s next installment!
A Matter of Blood is the first installment in Sarah Pinborough’s Dog-Faced Gods trilogy, a heart-pounding mix of horror and crime fiction, with a dash of good old speculative fiction thrown in. Cass Jones is a bitter Detective Investigator for the London police force, where every officer quietly takes kickbacks from the local mobsters as a matter of course. Cass’s marriage is falling apart, he’s haunted by a nasty history, and he’s got a bit of a drug habit—and right now he’s also desperately overworked by two violent case loads that aren’t adding up. The only thing that is adding up is the vast amounts of money held by The Bank, a seemingly omniscient corporation founded a few years ago by faceless billionaires in order to rescue the global economy from a recession. And now, for some reason, The Bank is interested in Cass.
Cass Jones, the Detective Inspector
Cass Jones is perfect. Not in the sense of a perfect man—no, he’s nowhere near perfect as a man—but he is definitely a perfect character. His flaws range from adultery to unkindness to murder, and while normally that would make for a grim protagonist to follow, Pinborough manages to transform Cass from a ruthless pig to a guilt-ridden, flawed, and sympathetic human. Cass has made some bad choices in his past and he makes some bad choices in A Matter of Blood, but the choices are always understandable. Sometimes his memories are painful to read, but that’s only because Cass’s own pain feels real.
The secondary characters are excellent, as well. Dr. Hask, the criminal psychologist, only makes an appearance a couple times in the novel, but his voice is cool and intelligent, and I hope we hear more from him in the next two books. Bright has the same cunning malevolence as Neil Gaiman’s Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar in Neverwhere. Cass’s sergeant, Claire, verges on annoying with her chirpy optimism, but the tense relationship she has with Cass makes her worth reading about.
Creepy and thrilling
A Matter of Blood lurks on the edge of horror while delivering the same heart-pounding suspense as a thriller. Some chapters, particularly the ones about The Bank, reminded me of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series. The supernatural elements are really, really creepy, and Pinborough sent shivers down my spine without even resorting to gore (although she includes that, too). Pinborough’s writing is lean, and thankfully, she doesn’t offer too many details on Cass’s dystopian world beyond the necessities; the dark atmosphere is all you need to understand the setting. The police work all struck me as believable without being dry, and the corruption in the force turns what could have been another typical crime thriller into something truly desolate and gripping.
A slow start
A Matter of Blood’s major flaw is its slow start. Pinborough strategically shifts viewpoints throughout the novel, and though most of the time that works, the beginning of the book focuses all too much on the finality of death and the philosophical musings of a psychotic serial killer. I wasn’t really immersed in the plot until after the first thirty or fifty pages; up until then, Cass Jones just seems like a sad and desperate copper. Once his cases start developing, though, the story really gets going. By the second half of the book, I could hardly put it down.
Why should you read this book?
This is no airy fantasy. In fact, it’s hardly even science fiction, since the novel’s only set a few years after 2010. But this dystopian page-turner brings together the best of suspense thrillers, horror, and police procedural. In A Matter of Blood, the supernatural elements remain comparably subtle, but it’s clear that in the next two books of the trilogy, those elements will come to the forefront. This is a departure from my usual reads, but I can’t wait for Pinborough’s next installment!
June 2, 2011
This is the first book in The Dog-Faced Gods Trilogy, and I consider myself very lucky to have gotten an ARC.
Detective Inspector Cass Jones lives in London. In a world where the financial situation is so bad that most people (including the police) accept bribes from someone. It's a hard place to live, and is made even harder by a huge financial institution known only as the Bank. The Bank pretty much calls the shots, all around the world. Everyone's doing it tough, but Cass has a knack for trouble and a past that won't leave him alone. His marriage is falling to pieces and his younger brother keeps calling him.
But he's got enough to worry about with two big murder cases to solve. One involving what first appears to be the drive-by shooting of two kids who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And the serial murder of women left with messages written on their bodies in blood, along with fly eggs. Yeah, that's enough to ruin anyone's day. But when his brother is involved in a murder suicide that implicates Cass as well, his whole life gets turned upside down.
All three cases seem unrelated at first, yet the deeper he digs and the more he searches, the more Cass realises that they're as connected to each other as they are to his family. Because Cass is about to find out a few family secrets that will only confuse him and lead him to the mysterious Mr. Bright, as well as the killer he's been searching for.
In this book, nothing is as it seems. There's an enigma at every turn, and the body count doesn't stop until the end. The mystery of the Dog-Faced Gods sucks you in until you find yourself so caught up that you can't put the book down. It's what happened to me. I spent most of the weekend going back to the story because just like Cass, I had to know. But this being a trilogy, I got a taste that left me with many more questions.
A Matter of Blood is an amazing piece of storytelling. The way it starts out in a seemingly real life situation, soon throws you askew. It's a well written thrill ride that'll keep you guessing along with the characters. As the pieces are all thrown at you from different angles, you try your best to solve it, but only manage to get a piece of the big picture. And I have to admit, that I absolutely loved that about this book.
This is a gritty and very bleak story that swept me away as soon as I started it. I felt every bit of desperation as hard as the characters did, and could even taste the darkness of a world with no hope. I really need to find out when the next book comes out because I can't wait to read more about how Cass fits into this bizarre world. Awesome!
Detective Inspector Cass Jones lives in London. In a world where the financial situation is so bad that most people (including the police) accept bribes from someone. It's a hard place to live, and is made even harder by a huge financial institution known only as the Bank. The Bank pretty much calls the shots, all around the world. Everyone's doing it tough, but Cass has a knack for trouble and a past that won't leave him alone. His marriage is falling to pieces and his younger brother keeps calling him.
But he's got enough to worry about with two big murder cases to solve. One involving what first appears to be the drive-by shooting of two kids who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And the serial murder of women left with messages written on their bodies in blood, along with fly eggs. Yeah, that's enough to ruin anyone's day. But when his brother is involved in a murder suicide that implicates Cass as well, his whole life gets turned upside down.
All three cases seem unrelated at first, yet the deeper he digs and the more he searches, the more Cass realises that they're as connected to each other as they are to his family. Because Cass is about to find out a few family secrets that will only confuse him and lead him to the mysterious Mr. Bright, as well as the killer he's been searching for.
In this book, nothing is as it seems. There's an enigma at every turn, and the body count doesn't stop until the end. The mystery of the Dog-Faced Gods sucks you in until you find yourself so caught up that you can't put the book down. It's what happened to me. I spent most of the weekend going back to the story because just like Cass, I had to know. But this being a trilogy, I got a taste that left me with many more questions.
A Matter of Blood is an amazing piece of storytelling. The way it starts out in a seemingly real life situation, soon throws you askew. It's a well written thrill ride that'll keep you guessing along with the characters. As the pieces are all thrown at you from different angles, you try your best to solve it, but only manage to get a piece of the big picture. And I have to admit, that I absolutely loved that about this book.
This is a gritty and very bleak story that swept me away as soon as I started it. I felt every bit of desperation as hard as the characters did, and could even taste the darkness of a world with no hope. I really need to find out when the next book comes out because I can't wait to read more about how Cass fits into this bizarre world. Awesome!
May 17, 2019
3.5* I've loved everything I've read by Pinborough so far and this was the first time I'd listened to an audio of one of her books, it was prob me being too distracted throughout and only listening in small chunks, but I didn't engage with this one as much as the others. I will continue with the series though. As someone else said you can't pin this one down it is many things and just a little bit different, I like different.
December 28, 2015
**minor spoilers**
I found a lot to like about this novel, Pinborough's writing is thoroughly engaging, emotive and keenly observed. While I don't read a lot of crime fiction, the protagonist, DI Cass Jones had an inner narrative which was nuanced enough to skirt the bad-guy-but-a-hell-of-a-detective cliche. Cass' relationships with his colleagues, his brother, and his parents are fleshed out and for the most part feel authentic. The world-building of a decaying London presided over by a mega-corporation known only as the Bank is well handled and reflected in the details of characters lives. The growing human impacts of economic and social collapse are embedded in the narrative, and are neatly mobilised to give depth to character motivations. Pinborough is highly critical of the destructive potential of an unchecked profit motive on an individual and social levels in a way that adds to the central tensions of the novel. I found the supernatural elements quite original and creepy and nicely aligned with the setting and themes.
The multiple plot strands are woven together effectively into a conclusion that strikes the balance between resolving enough of short-term mysteries specific to this book, while opening up larger questions for later books in the sequence. The hook for the sequel totally worked on me and I will read on at some point. I found the pacing is a little uneven, and is not aided by the distribution of flashbacks.
This is however is not a four star review for two reasons. The first is the treatment of women and second is the treatment of race in the flashbacks. If you're worried about spoilers, stop reading now.
Like many serial killer novels the mutilated bodies of women are the backdrop to numerous scenes throughout the novel. To her credit Pinborough is aware of this - when a character makes a sexist disparaging remark about a victim, DI Jones rejects this, explicitly stating that her life was not less valuable because she was poor and addict. Small, but uncommon in the genre so noteworthy. This positive note however isn't reflected in the portrayals of female supporting characters.
In a novel populated with unlikeable characters, including gangsters and murderers, the men, although often weak are much more positively drawn than the women. The one woman who isn't a victim of either Cass or the serial killer, DS Claire May, doesn't make it to the end of the novel. A former lover of the protagonist (sigh) her death is sudden, summary and not really necessary to drive the plot forward. Kate, Cass' wife, is a shallow line drawing of a character, and so her choices - which drive a major plot development are inexplicable - even if you find Cass himself insufferable, which isn't the most obvious reading of any protagonist. Minor characters are stereotypes - grasping greedy upper middle class wives have motivated another of the crimes, the plain secretary secretly in love with her boss who Cass exploits for information, the heart-of-gold nurse who becomes a victim of the serial killer - which combined to frustrate me.
The second issue I struggled with was the flashback sequences, to a time when Cass was undercover. We learn about a (white) gangster Brian Freeman whose recollected voice is strong moral influence on Cass in the novel's present and the Unforgiveable Thing which drives his guilt and overshadows all of his relationships. That thing is suitably horrific - the execution of black teenager, who had been kidnapped and tortured by the Brian's gang. DI Jones does not forgive himself for his choice, but the reader is encouraged to see that choice as being the result of the circumstances - the system failed, so Cass could kill the boy, or be killed himself, and so he killed the boy. Against a backdrop in which white gangsters are humanised, sympathetic voices, and class and poverty are stripped of any racial dimension, I found the way the object of a nameless, brutalised black body was used deeply problematic. If there was a point being made about the way society decides which victims are worth mourning or that police can and do get away with murder - both of which the protagonist reflects on at different points in the novel - then that point is not very well made here.
For me these things detracted from an otherwise smart and interesting novel. I certainly read it in particular way because it was clear that the author wasn't just writing a straightforward supernatural noirish thriller, she'd thought about social justice and inequality and this came through in the text. Those promising elements raised my expectations,and the rating reflects my disappointment that it wasn't quite as well executed as it might have been.
I found a lot to like about this novel, Pinborough's writing is thoroughly engaging, emotive and keenly observed. While I don't read a lot of crime fiction, the protagonist, DI Cass Jones had an inner narrative which was nuanced enough to skirt the bad-guy-but-a-hell-of-a-detective cliche. Cass' relationships with his colleagues, his brother, and his parents are fleshed out and for the most part feel authentic. The world-building of a decaying London presided over by a mega-corporation known only as the Bank is well handled and reflected in the details of characters lives. The growing human impacts of economic and social collapse are embedded in the narrative, and are neatly mobilised to give depth to character motivations. Pinborough is highly critical of the destructive potential of an unchecked profit motive on an individual and social levels in a way that adds to the central tensions of the novel. I found the supernatural elements quite original and creepy and nicely aligned with the setting and themes.
The multiple plot strands are woven together effectively into a conclusion that strikes the balance between resolving enough of short-term mysteries specific to this book, while opening up larger questions for later books in the sequence. The hook for the sequel totally worked on me and I will read on at some point. I found the pacing is a little uneven, and is not aided by the distribution of flashbacks.
This is however is not a four star review for two reasons. The first is the treatment of women and second is the treatment of race in the flashbacks. If you're worried about spoilers, stop reading now.
Like many serial killer novels the mutilated bodies of women are the backdrop to numerous scenes throughout the novel. To her credit Pinborough is aware of this - when a character makes a sexist disparaging remark about a victim, DI Jones rejects this, explicitly stating that her life was not less valuable because she was poor and addict. Small, but uncommon in the genre so noteworthy. This positive note however isn't reflected in the portrayals of female supporting characters.
In a novel populated with unlikeable characters, including gangsters and murderers, the men, although often weak are much more positively drawn than the women. The one woman who isn't a victim of either Cass or the serial killer, DS Claire May, doesn't make it to the end of the novel. A former lover of the protagonist (sigh) her death is sudden, summary and not really necessary to drive the plot forward. Kate, Cass' wife, is a shallow line drawing of a character, and so her choices - which drive a major plot development are inexplicable - even if you find Cass himself insufferable, which isn't the most obvious reading of any protagonist. Minor characters are stereotypes - grasping greedy upper middle class wives have motivated another of the crimes, the plain secretary secretly in love with her boss who Cass exploits for information, the heart-of-gold nurse who becomes a victim of the serial killer - which combined to frustrate me.
The second issue I struggled with was the flashback sequences, to a time when Cass was undercover. We learn about a (white) gangster Brian Freeman whose recollected voice is strong moral influence on Cass in the novel's present and the Unforgiveable Thing which drives his guilt and overshadows all of his relationships. That thing is suitably horrific - the execution of black teenager, who had been kidnapped and tortured by the Brian's gang. DI Jones does not forgive himself for his choice, but the reader is encouraged to see that choice as being the result of the circumstances - the system failed, so Cass could kill the boy, or be killed himself, and so he killed the boy. Against a backdrop in which white gangsters are humanised, sympathetic voices, and class and poverty are stripped of any racial dimension, I found the way the object of a nameless, brutalised black body was used deeply problematic. If there was a point being made about the way society decides which victims are worth mourning or that police can and do get away with murder - both of which the protagonist reflects on at different points in the novel - then that point is not very well made here.
For me these things detracted from an otherwise smart and interesting novel. I certainly read it in particular way because it was clear that the author wasn't just writing a straightforward supernatural noirish thriller, she'd thought about social justice and inequality and this came through in the text. Those promising elements raised my expectations,and the rating reflects my disappointment that it wasn't quite as well executed as it might have been.
April 23, 2013
You may also read my review here: http://www.mybookishways.com/2013/04/...
DI Cass Jones isn’t a perfect man. In fact, he’s been known to take “payments” from certain local “businessmen”, has what he calls a cocaine “hobby”, and in spite of being married, can’t seem to stay away from the opposite sex. He is, however, a very, very good policeman, and when he picks up a fellow cop’s murder cases, one in particular has him stymied. The 4th victim in what they now know is the work of a serial killer has been found, a pinprick in her arm and “Nothing is Sacred”written across her chest in blood, with no other signs of assault. Meanwhile, Cass is also working on the drive by shootings of two teenagers, who the police assumed were caught in the crossfire of a shooting meant for a local thug. Someone has sent the police a video of the crime, and something is off about it, but Cass can’t quite put his finger on it. All of this seems to fall by the wayside when he gets the news that his younger brother supposedly killed his wife and young son, then turned the gun on himself. Shattered, and convinced his brother would never kill his family and commit suicide, he starts digging into his brother’s, and his family’s, pasts, and is soon confronted with the image of a man who calls himself Mr. Bright. Mr. Bright may not be entirely human, and his connection to the one who calls himself the Man of Flies might be the key to all three cases.
Sarah Pinborough is very popular overseas and she’s written quite a few horror titles that are available in the US. My point is, the lady is a pro, and it shows in A Matter of Blood, the first novel in the Forgotten Gods Series (The Dog Faced Gods in the UK). I’ve made no secret as to my weakness for British coppers, and Cass Jones is right up there with Mo Hayder’s Jack Caffery and Mark Billingham’s Tom Thorne. He’s in a cold marriage with a wife that can take him or leave him (mostly leave him), due to an event that happened during his undercover days, and at first, I thought this might be a tool to add to the pain of his brother’s death, but it’s not. Cass’s wife is much, much more than she seems, and her ice queen demeanor set me up for quite a revelation, but I digress. Back to murder. While Cass is attempting to retrace his brother’s footsteps before his death, things seem to point right to The Bank, a vastly powerful and secretive organization that is widely thought to actually run most of the country. When Cass starts asking around about Mr. Bright, the name seems to conjure awe and fear in equal measure and when he’s stonewalled completely, he knows he’s on the right track.
So, what can you look forward to in A Matter of Blood? Police procedural: check. More twists and turns than the streets of London: check. A complex, flawed protagonist: check. All that with a supernatural twist and threads of a dark and vast conspiracy. Set against a slightly alternate London, with the looming shadow of economic ruin over its people, Sarah Pinborough has created a world not unlike the one in Michael Marshall Smith’s Straw Men trilogy, but with a distinctive voice all her own. She also does it without the use of overt gore and relies on subtle, creeping horror to get her point across. The murders aren’t particularly gruesome (except for maybe the flies…that’s enough to make anyone shudder), but there are some scenes that will make those little hairs on the back of your neck stand up. She expertly explores the darkest places in the human soul as well as I would have liked to know more about Cass’s past while undercover, but I’m hoping that she’ll revisit that more in the next book. While the book doesn’t end on a cliffhanger, it does leave questions that beg to be answered, and I’m anxious to dig into the next book in the series, The Shadow of the Soul, in August! A Matter of Blood is the perfect intro to a superb writer, and it’s not to be missed!
DI Cass Jones isn’t a perfect man. In fact, he’s been known to take “payments” from certain local “businessmen”, has what he calls a cocaine “hobby”, and in spite of being married, can’t seem to stay away from the opposite sex. He is, however, a very, very good policeman, and when he picks up a fellow cop’s murder cases, one in particular has him stymied. The 4th victim in what they now know is the work of a serial killer has been found, a pinprick in her arm and “Nothing is Sacred”written across her chest in blood, with no other signs of assault. Meanwhile, Cass is also working on the drive by shootings of two teenagers, who the police assumed were caught in the crossfire of a shooting meant for a local thug. Someone has sent the police a video of the crime, and something is off about it, but Cass can’t quite put his finger on it. All of this seems to fall by the wayside when he gets the news that his younger brother supposedly killed his wife and young son, then turned the gun on himself. Shattered, and convinced his brother would never kill his family and commit suicide, he starts digging into his brother’s, and his family’s, pasts, and is soon confronted with the image of a man who calls himself Mr. Bright. Mr. Bright may not be entirely human, and his connection to the one who calls himself the Man of Flies might be the key to all three cases.
Sarah Pinborough is very popular overseas and she’s written quite a few horror titles that are available in the US. My point is, the lady is a pro, and it shows in A Matter of Blood, the first novel in the Forgotten Gods Series (The Dog Faced Gods in the UK). I’ve made no secret as to my weakness for British coppers, and Cass Jones is right up there with Mo Hayder’s Jack Caffery and Mark Billingham’s Tom Thorne. He’s in a cold marriage with a wife that can take him or leave him (mostly leave him), due to an event that happened during his undercover days, and at first, I thought this might be a tool to add to the pain of his brother’s death, but it’s not. Cass’s wife is much, much more than she seems, and her ice queen demeanor set me up for quite a revelation, but I digress. Back to murder. While Cass is attempting to retrace his brother’s footsteps before his death, things seem to point right to The Bank, a vastly powerful and secretive organization that is widely thought to actually run most of the country. When Cass starts asking around about Mr. Bright, the name seems to conjure awe and fear in equal measure and when he’s stonewalled completely, he knows he’s on the right track.
So, what can you look forward to in A Matter of Blood? Police procedural: check. More twists and turns than the streets of London: check. A complex, flawed protagonist: check. All that with a supernatural twist and threads of a dark and vast conspiracy. Set against a slightly alternate London, with the looming shadow of economic ruin over its people, Sarah Pinborough has created a world not unlike the one in Michael Marshall Smith’s Straw Men trilogy, but with a distinctive voice all her own. She also does it without the use of overt gore and relies on subtle, creeping horror to get her point across. The murders aren’t particularly gruesome (except for maybe the flies…that’s enough to make anyone shudder), but there are some scenes that will make those little hairs on the back of your neck stand up. She expertly explores the darkest places in the human soul as well as I would have liked to know more about Cass’s past while undercover, but I’m hoping that she’ll revisit that more in the next book. While the book doesn’t end on a cliffhanger, it does leave questions that beg to be answered, and I’m anxious to dig into the next book in the series, The Shadow of the Soul, in August! A Matter of Blood is the perfect intro to a superb writer, and it’s not to be missed!
July 14, 2010
This is the first novel in The Dog-Faced Gods trilogy, and rather defies classification by genre. It could fit quite comfortably in the crime section of a bookstore, or the horror section, and the dystopian near-future setting where The Bank controls governments places it squarely on the sci-fi shelves. The result is a novel that scares and thrills in equal measure. Sarah Pinborough acknowledges the influences of Michael Marshall Smith in his crime thriller guise as Michael Marshall, and I could definitely see echoes of his sparse yet pulse-pounding style in the way Pinborough sets out the events in A Matter of Blood.
The novel concerns Cass Jones, a rather difficult character to like but one you can't help sympathise with. He follows in the footsteps of all those police characters in detective novels - slightly maverick, working in shades of grey rather than idealistic black and white, always the best person to get into the psyche of the killer they're chasing. He could be accused of being rather cliche, and does come across as such while the novel works within the boundaries of being a straight up crime novel - as soon as the dark supernatural events start sliding onto the pages he escapes this accusation, and becomes a character we can really identify with.
The plot is not too complicated, with a nice linear structure; and Pinborough's use of chapter end cliffhangers ensures you feel a constant need to just turn the next page. I stayed up [far too:] late reading this book, with a complete inability to put it down because I wanted to find out why Cass is being set up, who the Man of Flies is, and whether all three police cases are linked to the mystery of Bright and Solomon. I enjoyed the lean prose, which fleshed out the setting and the secondary characters with broad brush-strokes but didn't dwell lovingly on all the little details.
The characters are intriguing and some of them definitely leap off the page. I particularly liked DI Ramsey, another police officer who lends Cass a quiet hand, and Dr Tim Hask, the profiler brought in to try and work out who is committing the brutal murders of seemingly random women. Both of these characters had small parts in the novel overall, but really came to life with some excellent dialogue.
There are a few issues with the novel - at times the foreshadowing was extremely clumsy, and I felt as though I was being signposted too strongly away from the meat of the case. Pinborough's misdirection definitely wasn't as smooth as it could be. The supernatural elements are also added in a distinctly self-conscious manner - although I like the mystery of Bright and Solomon, I felt as though this novel would not have suffered from being non-genre rather than introducing ghosts and Gods.
The main thrust of the novel's events are wrapped up in a decent resolution, but there is definitely enough material for the remaining books in this trilogy - and I, for one, cannot wait to read them! A Matter of Blood is a cracking read, never less than thoroughly entertaining and genuinely creepy.
The novel concerns Cass Jones, a rather difficult character to like but one you can't help sympathise with. He follows in the footsteps of all those police characters in detective novels - slightly maverick, working in shades of grey rather than idealistic black and white, always the best person to get into the psyche of the killer they're chasing. He could be accused of being rather cliche, and does come across as such while the novel works within the boundaries of being a straight up crime novel - as soon as the dark supernatural events start sliding onto the pages he escapes this accusation, and becomes a character we can really identify with.
The plot is not too complicated, with a nice linear structure; and Pinborough's use of chapter end cliffhangers ensures you feel a constant need to just turn the next page. I stayed up [far too:] late reading this book, with a complete inability to put it down because I wanted to find out why Cass is being set up, who the Man of Flies is, and whether all three police cases are linked to the mystery of Bright and Solomon. I enjoyed the lean prose, which fleshed out the setting and the secondary characters with broad brush-strokes but didn't dwell lovingly on all the little details.
The characters are intriguing and some of them definitely leap off the page. I particularly liked DI Ramsey, another police officer who lends Cass a quiet hand, and Dr Tim Hask, the profiler brought in to try and work out who is committing the brutal murders of seemingly random women. Both of these characters had small parts in the novel overall, but really came to life with some excellent dialogue.
There are a few issues with the novel - at times the foreshadowing was extremely clumsy, and I felt as though I was being signposted too strongly away from the meat of the case. Pinborough's misdirection definitely wasn't as smooth as it could be. The supernatural elements are also added in a distinctly self-conscious manner - although I like the mystery of Bright and Solomon, I felt as though this novel would not have suffered from being non-genre rather than introducing ghosts and Gods.
The main thrust of the novel's events are wrapped up in a decent resolution, but there is definitely enough material for the remaining books in this trilogy - and I, for one, cannot wait to read them! A Matter of Blood is a cracking read, never less than thoroughly entertaining and genuinely creepy.
April 4, 2013
Really enjoyed this. A great mix of hard-boiled noir, police procedural and the supernatural. Found the characters interesting, and the plot kept me hooked to the end. Looking forward to part two.
December 31, 2017
Not at all what I expected, and brilliant with it, this is a near-future set supernatural noir following the not remotely admirable DI Cass Jones through an investigation that drags in a serial killer, hidden secrets in Jones’s own family and the disintegration of his own flaccid relationship, police corruption, and the machinations of shadowy figures representing the super-bank that may or may not be the power that runs the world. For the most part the story presents itself on the smaller local level, but there are insinuations throughout that something significantly grander and more significant is going on in the background that the POV characters (principally Cass) have no real understanding of.
For all of the mystery and horror trappings that this novel embellishes itself with, it stands largely on the quality of the characters – for the most part, crumbling, disillusioned souls struggling through a stark alternate reality in which the world’s recovery from the 2009 financial crash took a very different turn. Even the most appalling participants in the story have redeeming features, and even the most admirable have a twisted underside. They’re fascinating and unpredictable, a description which applies equally to the novel as a whole.
For all of the mystery and horror trappings that this novel embellishes itself with, it stands largely on the quality of the characters – for the most part, crumbling, disillusioned souls struggling through a stark alternate reality in which the world’s recovery from the 2009 financial crash took a very different turn. Even the most appalling participants in the story have redeeming features, and even the most admirable have a twisted underside. They’re fascinating and unpredictable, a description which applies equally to the novel as a whole.
March 27, 2018
I really liked this book though I have to admit it was not expertly written. 3.5 stars The plot was wonderfully complicated! Full of twists and turns but the reveals could have better executed.
The main character is a police man but this is by no means a police procedural story. It is not quite urban fantasy either but it has that same gritty feel to it. It is along similar vein to Life on Mars, but not good.
I will be continuing the series as the audio is available in my library - not sure I'd buy it though.
The main character is a police man but this is by no means a police procedural story. It is not quite urban fantasy either but it has that same gritty feel to it. It is along similar vein to Life on Mars, but not good.
I will be continuing the series as the audio is available in my library - not sure I'd buy it though.
November 22, 2018
A good crime novel with shades of horror and science fiction elements. Set in a near future London that is all too recognisable, where police are corrupt and greedy bankers are practically running a country on the edge of collapse. It is part of a trilogy and I am looking forward to reading the other installments.
October 27, 2025
3.5 ⭐️
March 24, 2014
Sarah Pinborough makes it clear from the first page of her prologue in A Matter of Blood that we’ll be seeing plenty of blood — and worse. The novel opens on the scene of a corpse squirming with maggots. An unnamed man stands in the doorway and declares that “This has to stop,” but the noise of the flies only grows louder. It seems, though, that the man is talking to someone — not to the corpse, not to himself, not even to the flies, though maybe he is speaking to someone through the flies. And maybe, we think, we’re on to something with that last thought, because as the speaker continues, the flies gather together and form into a shape that is nearly human.
It’s the last glimpse of the supernatural we get for a long time, though. Instead, Pinborough’s novel reads like a sharp, nicely detailed police procedural for most of its first half. The protagonist is Detective Inspector Cass Jones, who works in the Paddington Green precinct of a near-future London (as of the time the book was published) subtly different from the one in the real world. Cass is finely drawn: he is exceptionally smart, but has a strong tendency to self-defeating behavior, including ugly fights with a wife he loves, affairs with the wrong women, too many cigarettes and the occasional use cocaine. He has high friends in low places, but that’s not the reason most of his fellow officers despise him; he ran into some trouble while undercover a few years earlier, and some think he got off too easy. It seems that only his sergeant, Claire May, has any regard for him. Partly that’s because he’s good at what he does, and a good boss besides; partly it’s because they have a brief physical and emotional relationship in their recent past.
Cass has been assigned to the latest serial-killer murder; this is the fourth victim in two months. “Nothing is sacred,” say the words written on the latest female corpse in her own blood. He’s also working on the murder of two young boys who were the victims of a drive-by shooting, while the apparent intended victim of the shooting, another criminal, walked away. The cases are sufficiently all-consuming, but when a personal tragedy intervenes, Cass comes close to being overwhelmed. And even then, there is more real-world horror to be heaped on Cass’s head. It seems it’s never so bad that it can’t get worse, and worse keeps coming.
About midway through the book, though, Pinborough begins to make explicit what she has merely been hinting at thus far, and the supernatural takes a role in the events swirling about Cass. The doings of his brother’s employer, known merely as “The Bank,” begin to seem more far-reaching than the public realizes, and we wonder who is running the world that Pinborough has created. Pinborough subtly injects the supernatural into her tale as merely one more element in a straightforward mystery, so that the reader is hip deep in alligators before she even knows she’s walked into a swamp.
As a longtime mystery reader, especially one with a love for English mysteries, I was entranced by this novel from the outset. As a longtime horror reader, I quickly recognized that Pinborough was dealing with horrors worse than those humans inflict on one another. Pinborough skillfully deploys the science fictional elements of the near-future effects of the 2008 Great Recession with the police procedural set in the nitty gritty world of police work with the horrors that can only be wreaked by ancient gods fighting one another, and the forces of entropy, for their very survival.
A Matter of Blood is the first in the FORGOTTEN GODS trilogy. It is, however, largely self-contained. You won’t find any explicit cliffhangers here, and Pinborough gives us solutions to the major crimes Jones is investigating in this novel. Still, threads are left hanging — a sufficient number of them to lead a reader to grab the second book in the trilogy as soon as she closes the covers on this first one. Turn off the phone, lock the doors, leave the lights on, and read; once Pinborough captures you, you are enthralled to the end.
Originally published at http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi....
It’s the last glimpse of the supernatural we get for a long time, though. Instead, Pinborough’s novel reads like a sharp, nicely detailed police procedural for most of its first half. The protagonist is Detective Inspector Cass Jones, who works in the Paddington Green precinct of a near-future London (as of the time the book was published) subtly different from the one in the real world. Cass is finely drawn: he is exceptionally smart, but has a strong tendency to self-defeating behavior, including ugly fights with a wife he loves, affairs with the wrong women, too many cigarettes and the occasional use cocaine. He has high friends in low places, but that’s not the reason most of his fellow officers despise him; he ran into some trouble while undercover a few years earlier, and some think he got off too easy. It seems that only his sergeant, Claire May, has any regard for him. Partly that’s because he’s good at what he does, and a good boss besides; partly it’s because they have a brief physical and emotional relationship in their recent past.
Cass has been assigned to the latest serial-killer murder; this is the fourth victim in two months. “Nothing is sacred,” say the words written on the latest female corpse in her own blood. He’s also working on the murder of two young boys who were the victims of a drive-by shooting, while the apparent intended victim of the shooting, another criminal, walked away. The cases are sufficiently all-consuming, but when a personal tragedy intervenes, Cass comes close to being overwhelmed. And even then, there is more real-world horror to be heaped on Cass’s head. It seems it’s never so bad that it can’t get worse, and worse keeps coming.
About midway through the book, though, Pinborough begins to make explicit what she has merely been hinting at thus far, and the supernatural takes a role in the events swirling about Cass. The doings of his brother’s employer, known merely as “The Bank,” begin to seem more far-reaching than the public realizes, and we wonder who is running the world that Pinborough has created. Pinborough subtly injects the supernatural into her tale as merely one more element in a straightforward mystery, so that the reader is hip deep in alligators before she even knows she’s walked into a swamp.
As a longtime mystery reader, especially one with a love for English mysteries, I was entranced by this novel from the outset. As a longtime horror reader, I quickly recognized that Pinborough was dealing with horrors worse than those humans inflict on one another. Pinborough skillfully deploys the science fictional elements of the near-future effects of the 2008 Great Recession with the police procedural set in the nitty gritty world of police work with the horrors that can only be wreaked by ancient gods fighting one another, and the forces of entropy, for their very survival.
A Matter of Blood is the first in the FORGOTTEN GODS trilogy. It is, however, largely self-contained. You won’t find any explicit cliffhangers here, and Pinborough gives us solutions to the major crimes Jones is investigating in this novel. Still, threads are left hanging — a sufficient number of them to lead a reader to grab the second book in the trilogy as soon as she closes the covers on this first one. Turn off the phone, lock the doors, leave the lights on, and read; once Pinborough captures you, you are enthralled to the end.
Originally published at http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi....
February 2, 2018
A well written, fast paced detective mystery with overtones of an invisible cabal of ancient beings running the world. The murder mysteries are solved but the bread crumbs of what these World Bank leaders are is still a mystery, so on to book two.
September 4, 2013
A Matter of Blood is the first in Sarah Pinborough’s Forgotten Gods (or Dog-Faced Gods if you’re in the UK) horror/noir series. I have a soft spot for urban fantasy but am pretty particular about the quality of the material in that subgenre. While many books in the urban fantasy realm stick to the somewhat conventional realm of mystery A Matter of Blood mixes together the gritty world of noir with horrific dark fantasy to create a vivid world painted in shades of gray. A Matter of Blood takes place in a near-future London where the economy is in shambles, detectives work on bonuses for convictions, corruption is rife (to offset the fact that those bonus are tied up in an overtaxed court system), and the seemingly powerful Bank has its hands in everything. Detective Inspector Cass Jones is a jaded but surprisingly hard-working police officer ostracized by his peers due to an undercover job that went wrong. Cass is about as honest as a corrupt cop can get and throughout the novel seems compels to catch whoever is responsible even when easier targets could be made to take the fall.
A Matter of Blood is no lighthearted romp. Cass’ humor speeds past sarcasm straight into the realm of the sardonic. The future is a grim place and people go about their lives seemingly by rote with little or no hope for something better. At the start of the novel Cass’ case involves the accidental death of two little boys in a gangland hit gone wrong. However, it isn’t long before he is tasked to find out more information on serial killer known as the Man of Flies. The Man of Flies, after gruesomely murdering his victims, leaves trails of fly eggs along with the message of “Nothing is Sacred” on his victims. Pinborough has crafted a dark and dripping world and through the Man of Flies, and his pursuit, weaves in subtle elements of the supernatural. It quickly becomes apparent throughout A Matter of Blood that there are things, forces, in the shadows shaping and manipulating things.
Pinborough stays focused on the mystery however. As cynical as Cass is he is dedicated to providing a voice to the voiceless and is willing to provide a dogged, if not always particularly kosher, pursuit of the truth no matter the personal cost. Cass, like the reader, is very much in the dark regarding the supernatural elements at play and is only slowly exposed to the various elements at play. However, that exposure is layered in half-discovered truths and further obscured by the human mind’s ability to accept the simplest most obvious answer. While by the end of the novel the reader is more aware than Cass at the level of forces at play in the world we remain more or less in the dark about the nature of those power. While this could frustrate some I found Pinborough’s unwillingness to explain the details of her supernatural rather refreshing and one of the novel’s greatest strengths. Pinborough teases and tantalizes with her tidbits about the hidden world at play just beyond the surface, not enough to drive one made but just enough to make you desperately want more and simultaneously afraid to find out the truth.
A Matter of Blood is one of the most refreshing and original titles I’ve read in quite a while. It feels blessedly free of many of the cliche’s found in the urban fantasy subgenre; a fact tied to the author’s roots in horror. In truth it might be more accurate to simply call this urban horror. Pinborough has crafted a stark and fascinating world with a wealth of hidden undercurrents which, for the most part, she manages to simultaneously reveal and keep mysterious. I’m definitely looking forward to the rest of the books in this series (I’ve already read the second book). A Matter of Blood is highly recommended for fans of horror and dark fantasy.
A Matter of Blood is no lighthearted romp. Cass’ humor speeds past sarcasm straight into the realm of the sardonic. The future is a grim place and people go about their lives seemingly by rote with little or no hope for something better. At the start of the novel Cass’ case involves the accidental death of two little boys in a gangland hit gone wrong. However, it isn’t long before he is tasked to find out more information on serial killer known as the Man of Flies. The Man of Flies, after gruesomely murdering his victims, leaves trails of fly eggs along with the message of “Nothing is Sacred” on his victims. Pinborough has crafted a dark and dripping world and through the Man of Flies, and his pursuit, weaves in subtle elements of the supernatural. It quickly becomes apparent throughout A Matter of Blood that there are things, forces, in the shadows shaping and manipulating things.
Pinborough stays focused on the mystery however. As cynical as Cass is he is dedicated to providing a voice to the voiceless and is willing to provide a dogged, if not always particularly kosher, pursuit of the truth no matter the personal cost. Cass, like the reader, is very much in the dark regarding the supernatural elements at play and is only slowly exposed to the various elements at play. However, that exposure is layered in half-discovered truths and further obscured by the human mind’s ability to accept the simplest most obvious answer. While by the end of the novel the reader is more aware than Cass at the level of forces at play in the world we remain more or less in the dark about the nature of those power. While this could frustrate some I found Pinborough’s unwillingness to explain the details of her supernatural rather refreshing and one of the novel’s greatest strengths. Pinborough teases and tantalizes with her tidbits about the hidden world at play just beyond the surface, not enough to drive one made but just enough to make you desperately want more and simultaneously afraid to find out the truth.
A Matter of Blood is one of the most refreshing and original titles I’ve read in quite a while. It feels blessedly free of many of the cliche’s found in the urban fantasy subgenre; a fact tied to the author’s roots in horror. In truth it might be more accurate to simply call this urban horror. Pinborough has crafted a stark and fascinating world with a wealth of hidden undercurrents which, for the most part, she manages to simultaneously reveal and keep mysterious. I’m definitely looking forward to the rest of the books in this series (I’ve already read the second book). A Matter of Blood is highly recommended for fans of horror and dark fantasy.
August 26, 2016
Back in my college days, I distinctly recall one of my English professors saying to me, "Did you ever think about what this story would be like, without the monster?" In my case, the answer is not much of a story--or at least, not a very interesting one. Monsters, spirits, futuristic technology and the like are just intrinsic to the kinds of stories I write. But the more I read of A Matter of Blood, the more his words kept coming back to me--because I think that in this instance, they make a much better point.
The supernatural elements in A Matter of Blood are gossamer-thin at best. There are hints and tidbits about the "Glow," and a man full of flies sprinkled here and there throughout most of the book's length, but it's not until we're barely 30 pages from the end, that we finally see an unambiguous look at something otherworldly going on...and by that point, I honestly think it's kind of an unwelcome addition. And that's really something of a problem.
I picked up this book, expecting it to be straight-up urban fantasy, but what few supernatural elements there are feel tacked on. Really, for most of the book, the faint glimmers of the paranormal could just as easily have been grief-filled delusions of the main character, and constructions inside the psyche of a madman. If that had been the case, I think the story would have been better for it. Because at its core, A Matter of Blood is a very competent mystery/hard-boiled detective story. Had I gone in, expecting just that, I would have enjoyed 90% of the story--then been disillusioned by the ending when weird stuff actually does verifiably happen. But this book was in the sci-fi section of my local bookstore, and billed as urban fantasy, so my expectations were stymied from the get-go.
It's a weird conundrum: sci-fi/fantasy fans like myself will be disappointed by chapter upon chapter detailing police procedure in a mostly mundane world, but fans of detective stories will find the eventual culmination of the paranormal elements will probably leave a bad taste in their mouths. And that's a shame, because once you get over the (very) unlikable traits the main character has, there's a very serviceable mystery here, involving conspiracies, double-crosses, crooked cops, etc. But still, it's borderline-false advertising to classify this book as "fantasy," (as the back cover clearly does), and because of that bait & switch, I was only going to give this book two stars. However, a surprisingly cathartic sequence at the end earned it a middle-of-the-road rating instead. It feels strange to say, but had there been no fantastical elements here at all, and had the story instead been presented as just a crime drama, I may have rated it higher.
What would this story have been like without the monster? A heck of a lot better, actually.
The supernatural elements in A Matter of Blood are gossamer-thin at best. There are hints and tidbits about the "Glow," and a man full of flies sprinkled here and there throughout most of the book's length, but it's not until we're barely 30 pages from the end, that we finally see an unambiguous look at something otherworldly going on...and by that point, I honestly think it's kind of an unwelcome addition. And that's really something of a problem.
I picked up this book, expecting it to be straight-up urban fantasy, but what few supernatural elements there are feel tacked on. Really, for most of the book, the faint glimmers of the paranormal could just as easily have been grief-filled delusions of the main character, and constructions inside the psyche of a madman. If that had been the case, I think the story would have been better for it. Because at its core, A Matter of Blood is a very competent mystery/hard-boiled detective story. Had I gone in, expecting just that, I would have enjoyed 90% of the story--then been disillusioned by the ending when weird stuff actually does verifiably happen. But this book was in the sci-fi section of my local bookstore, and billed as urban fantasy, so my expectations were stymied from the get-go.
It's a weird conundrum: sci-fi/fantasy fans like myself will be disappointed by chapter upon chapter detailing police procedure in a mostly mundane world, but fans of detective stories will find the eventual culmination of the paranormal elements will probably leave a bad taste in their mouths. And that's a shame, because once you get over the (very) unlikable traits the main character has, there's a very serviceable mystery here, involving conspiracies, double-crosses, crooked cops, etc. But still, it's borderline-false advertising to classify this book as "fantasy," (as the back cover clearly does), and because of that bait & switch, I was only going to give this book two stars. However, a surprisingly cathartic sequence at the end earned it a middle-of-the-road rating instead. It feels strange to say, but had there been no fantastical elements here at all, and had the story instead been presented as just a crime drama, I may have rated it higher.
What would this story have been like without the monster? A heck of a lot better, actually.
July 30, 2013
Expanded version posted at Plenty of Pages.
I would almost hesitate to call this book fantasy-- it is, of course, urban fantasy at its darkest, but one of the things that made it so chilling was that for most of the book, the supernatural elements were barely there. A few scenes gave the reader concrete proof that something otherworldly was going on, but for the most part A Matter of Blood just read like a really twisted mystery.
I loved it, let's get that right out of the way-- it was gruesome and gritty and the characters were all deeply messed up in ways that made the twisting path of the plot even more intense. It read like a Tana French book. I couldn't put it down. Lately I've gotten to a point where I'm tired of books that *could* wrap up in one installment, but whose authors seem bent on turning them into a trilogy just for the heck of it. This definitely isn't that sort of book. There was just enough of the overarching big picture in the book to hook me like a gullible trout-- I'm absolutely desperate for the sequel, desperate to know more about Cass and his family and the Glow, the Bank, and of course Solomon and Bright.
The scariest dystopias for me are the "near future" kind, the kind where I can clearly trace the path of how we got from here to there. Pinborough's future Britain, where everything is run by The Bank, plays on the paranoia of the CCTV culture and heightens it. How long will it be until Big Brother isn't just watching us, but controlling us? The book is a baring commentary on the rotten heart of a greed-fueled society, implying that we deserve what we get when we can't keep our word, when we place image above truth. More subtly, it suggests that not paying attention is an equal crime. Cass is a good cop because he's unable to turn a blind eye to the necessities of corruption in his corrupt world, even as his choice not to see the Glow makes him blind to the larger machinations around him.
This is definitely not a book for someone with a weak stomach, nor is it likely to satisfy people who like lots of creatures and magic in their urban fantasy. But it is a truly twisted mystery with an unpredictable conclusion that left me-- as I said-- no less than desperate for its sequel. I might hop the queue and order a hard copy from Britain if the two-month wait gets truly interminable....
I would almost hesitate to call this book fantasy-- it is, of course, urban fantasy at its darkest, but one of the things that made it so chilling was that for most of the book, the supernatural elements were barely there. A few scenes gave the reader concrete proof that something otherworldly was going on, but for the most part A Matter of Blood just read like a really twisted mystery.
I loved it, let's get that right out of the way-- it was gruesome and gritty and the characters were all deeply messed up in ways that made the twisting path of the plot even more intense. It read like a Tana French book. I couldn't put it down. Lately I've gotten to a point where I'm tired of books that *could* wrap up in one installment, but whose authors seem bent on turning them into a trilogy just for the heck of it. This definitely isn't that sort of book. There was just enough of the overarching big picture in the book to hook me like a gullible trout-- I'm absolutely desperate for the sequel, desperate to know more about Cass and his family and the Glow, the Bank, and of course Solomon and Bright.
The scariest dystopias for me are the "near future" kind, the kind where I can clearly trace the path of how we got from here to there. Pinborough's future Britain, where everything is run by The Bank, plays on the paranoia of the CCTV culture and heightens it. How long will it be until Big Brother isn't just watching us, but controlling us? The book is a baring commentary on the rotten heart of a greed-fueled society, implying that we deserve what we get when we can't keep our word, when we place image above truth. More subtly, it suggests that not paying attention is an equal crime. Cass is a good cop because he's unable to turn a blind eye to the necessities of corruption in his corrupt world, even as his choice not to see the Glow makes him blind to the larger machinations around him.
This is definitely not a book for someone with a weak stomach, nor is it likely to satisfy people who like lots of creatures and magic in their urban fantasy. But it is a truly twisted mystery with an unpredictable conclusion that left me-- as I said-- no less than desperate for its sequel. I might hop the queue and order a hard copy from Britain if the two-month wait gets truly interminable....
October 2, 2018
Oh my gosh – I just finished this book, and it was every bit as good as Cross Her Heart, the first book I read by Sarah Pinborough. A Matter of Blood did not disappoint. It is entirely different than the first book I read, but it too captured my attention immediately.
Detective Investigator Cass Jones finds himself working on several cases concurrently, one of which is the death of his brother, sister-in-law, and nephew, seemingly a murder-suicide. His brother tried more than a few times to reach Cass by phone, sounding worried about something, but Cass ignored his younger brother’s calls until it was too late.
A serial killer is stacking up corpses; two young boys are collateral damage in the attempted murder of a local gangster, and Cass’s marriage is on rocky ground. Then he becomes a suspect in his brother’s death. Is someone setting him up? He has no idea who he can trust. All-in-all – not a good couple of months for Cass. Oh, AND he’s seeing his brother’s ghost.
Cass has skeletons in his closet, and Pinborough keeps you in the dark about what haunts him, revealing his past a little at a time. Cass is a good detective, largely because he thinks like a criminal. He’s not an entirely loveable character, and he has plenty of warts.
Somehow, “The Bank” plays a role. His brother worked there, and everything seems to lead back to it. Ultimately, Cass believes that all three of his cases could be related – but the truth is not what you might think. There is at least one little hook at the end that makes me want to hurry and read the next book in the series.
After the reviews I’ve read for Pinborough’s book, Behind Her Eyes, I can’t decide whether to read it next, or read the next book in the Forgotten God’s trilogy. Have you read any Sarah Pinborough books? What’s your favorite? What should I choose next? Let me know at https://bookbuzz.me/
Detective Investigator Cass Jones finds himself working on several cases concurrently, one of which is the death of his brother, sister-in-law, and nephew, seemingly a murder-suicide. His brother tried more than a few times to reach Cass by phone, sounding worried about something, but Cass ignored his younger brother’s calls until it was too late.
A serial killer is stacking up corpses; two young boys are collateral damage in the attempted murder of a local gangster, and Cass’s marriage is on rocky ground. Then he becomes a suspect in his brother’s death. Is someone setting him up? He has no idea who he can trust. All-in-all – not a good couple of months for Cass. Oh, AND he’s seeing his brother’s ghost.
Cass has skeletons in his closet, and Pinborough keeps you in the dark about what haunts him, revealing his past a little at a time. Cass is a good detective, largely because he thinks like a criminal. He’s not an entirely loveable character, and he has plenty of warts.
Somehow, “The Bank” plays a role. His brother worked there, and everything seems to lead back to it. Ultimately, Cass believes that all three of his cases could be related – but the truth is not what you might think. There is at least one little hook at the end that makes me want to hurry and read the next book in the series.
After the reviews I’ve read for Pinborough’s book, Behind Her Eyes, I can’t decide whether to read it next, or read the next book in the Forgotten God’s trilogy. Have you read any Sarah Pinborough books? What’s your favorite? What should I choose next? Let me know at https://bookbuzz.me/
November 1, 2014
It took me a number of years to come back to reading Sarah Pinborough. I didn't much care for her first three novels, published by Leisure Books here in the U.S., and didn't follow up on her books for quite some time. Then she published her excellent novella, The Language of Dying, and got my attention. Nonetheless, I still didn't get around to starting The Dog-Faced Gods (The Forgotten Gods in the U.S.) trilogy until this year. I'm very glad I did. Pinborough has sharpened her skills of plotting and characterization over the years, and she's also developed a concise but evocative style well-suited for the gritty landscape and gruesome, fantastical plot of A Matter of Blood.
I tend to avoid a lot of paranormal mystery, as the genre label is applied most frequently to works I find much too twee for my liking. Luckily, there's not an ounce of twee to be found here; Pinborough's protagonist is deeply and convincingly flawed, his bailiwick the morally and economically bankrupt almost-now London, and his antagonists menacing and intriguing in equal measures. Pinborough never telegraphs her twists, but once they arrive they seem inevitable--the sign of real craftsmanship. I'm happy to say that I have the next two books ready to go, and several other of her novels have moved closer to the top of my TBR stack on the strength of this book.
I tend to avoid a lot of paranormal mystery, as the genre label is applied most frequently to works I find much too twee for my liking. Luckily, there's not an ounce of twee to be found here; Pinborough's protagonist is deeply and convincingly flawed, his bailiwick the morally and economically bankrupt almost-now London, and his antagonists menacing and intriguing in equal measures. Pinborough never telegraphs her twists, but once they arrive they seem inevitable--the sign of real craftsmanship. I'm happy to say that I have the next two books ready to go, and several other of her novels have moved closer to the top of my TBR stack on the strength of this book.
July 30, 2013
With a tone and style that is almost an homage to Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus, Sarah Pinborough has created a bleak, dour, and insidiously captivating not-too-distant future of corruption and grime for her broken hero, DI Cass Jones. Were this a simple labyrinthine crime story it would have been enough but Pinborough has woven an engrossing supernatural thread throughout the plot, setting the stage for the rest of what the (American)cover calls "The Forgotten Gods Trilogy." While the 2 sides of this concept don't always line up seamlessly in the narrative, the pace and multiple plot elements are still kept in place so well that such is a minor quibble. The greatest detriment is the ending which wraps up the main thread but teases the further mysteries that will be explored in the next book - not really a bad thing at all. If Pinborough is able to keep her characters fresh and interesting twists on familiar models while at the same time revealing more and more of the supernatural without sacrificing the procedural detective drama that she is so keenly talented at writing, the rest of this series promises to be as thoroughly entertaining as this first novel.
December 19, 2018
A Matter of Blood is a bad novel. Ms. Pinborough repeatedly invokes crucial character backstory to explain her characters actions, but withholds that backstory till the end. This is simply bad storytelling. It is a lazy technique for creating mystery. Explaining things later that make sense of things earlier may seem like a clever literary strategy. It is not. It is frustrating and obnoxious. What's more, not a single character in this novel is likable. Nor is any endearingly unlikable, say in the manner of an antihero. Were the lot of them to die on the last page, I wouldn't care a whit. A second star is warranted only because the book was competently copy-edited.
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