Book Review: Extremity by Nicholas Binge

Rating: 8.25/10

TL;DR: Murder mystery with a little bit of horror, and a whole lot of “WTF is going on?” Engaging, zippy pacing, and an all-around great read.

A time-traveling, end-of-the-world police procedural, Extremity is True Detective if written by Philip K. Dick.

When once-renowned police detective Julia Torgrimsen is brought out of forced retirement to investigate the murder of Bruno Donaldson, a billionaire she worked with whilst undercover, she doesn’t expect to find two bodies. Both are Bruno—identical down to the fingerprints—and both have been shot.

As the investigation sucks her back into the macabre world of London’s rich elite, she finds herself on the hunt for a mysterious assassin who has been taking out the wealthy one by one. But when she finally catches up with her quarry, she unveils an entire world of secrets: impossible documents about future stock market crashes, photographs of dead clones, and a clandestine time-travelling conspiracy so insidious it might just mean the extinction of the entire human race.

If Julia is to have any chance of preventing this terrible future, she’ll have to revisit her own past, the terrible choices she made undercover, and the brutal act that destroyed her once legendary career.

A murder mystery that goes from an impossible execution into mind-bending horrors beyond imagining? Yes please!

This is my first Nicholas Binge book, but it won’t be my last. From the beginning, I was sucked in by the gritty and realistic tone set by each character, as well as the promise of some great mystery to be unraveled. There’s a lot of patience required, that much is clear from the beginning, but if we’re willing to hold on and follow along, we’re going somewhere well worth the journey. And yes, it absolutely lived up to that promise.

The story is told in the form of a “police interview” with the three main suspects in all the shenanigans:

• A retired former police detective trying to cope with her trauma using alcohol and nicotine
• A savvy detective who is assigned the case, but has no choice but to call on his former partner (the previously mentioned alcoholic) to unravel an impossible mystery.
• A wet-behind-the-ears police officer who gets drawn into the investigation almost by accident, and whose wide-eyed earnestness is a wonderful contrast to the other detectives’ cynicism.

There’s only so much I can say that won’t spoil the plot for you, but it’s enough to know that two versions of the same man turn up dead on the same night, in two different places. Impossible, right? Only there are some people who know it’s not just impossible—it’s a herald of dark things to come.

We’re given our own version of Jeffrey Epstein and his sickening cabal of shady billionaires doing exactly the kinds of things you’d expect—and so much more, that you’ll only discover as the story goes on.

The mystery driving the story only begins with “Who killed both victims?” but quickly spirals into “WTF is really going on here?” You get sucked in with the familiar murder mystery premise and stay for the weird, shocking twists and turns.

Though we only got snippets of who these people are through their interviews and interactions, I had a great time reading about them and felt like I had a great sense of them. The eager rookie, the jaded-but-good-hearted veteran, and the traumatized retired cop all fit nicely within the familiar character roles, but they all stepped out of their boxes in their own unique ways.

Though short, it was a punchy, zippy, engaging read from start to finish. I burned through it in one sitting, and it’s got me intrigued in the writer’s other books. Definitely a book I will gladly be recommending!