The Great Spa sits on the edge of London, a structure visible from space. The power of Britain on the world stage rests in its monopoly on the Treatment, a medical procedure which transforms the richest and most powerful into a state of permanent physical youth. The Great Spa is the place where the newly young immortals go to revitalise their aged souls.
In this most secure of facilities, a murder of one of the guests threatens to destabilise the new order, and DCI Oates of the Metropolitan police is called in to investigate. In a single day, Oates must unravel the secrets behind the Treatment and the long-ago disappearance of its creator, passing through a London riven with disorder and corruption. As a night of widespread rioting takes hold of the city, he moves towards a climax which could lead to the destruction of the Great Spa, his own ruin, and the loss of everything he holds most dear.
***
As one of the twentieth century's most missed musicians once wondered, who wants to live forever?
A better question to ask, perhaps: who among us doesn't?
As far back as in The Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the world's first literary works, we have dreamed as a people of sidestepping death; as far back as that, and further, immortality—whether through mythical or material means—has fascinated us in fiction and in fact.
According to certain scientists, these discoveries may be made mere decades from today, thus the promising premise of The Happier Dead. In the near future of Ivo Stourton's new book, eternal life is indeed achievable, but far from free, I'm afraid. You could spend your entire natural life putting every penny you earn in a pot and you'd still struggle to cough up the deposit.
But in a society where passing away has become an embarrassment, what price wouldn't you pay to avoid dying one day?
The magic happens in an egg-shaped structure so monolithic that it has altered the landscape of London, where Stourton stages the murder mystery at the haemorrhaging heart of The Happier Dead. The Great Spa can be seen from space, even, and "at its uppermost limit, the great red beacon on the top was so close to the rainclouds that the light illuminated them beneath with a cherry-red glow, giving the sky above [...] the look of a vast special effect, a stage show for the passing motorists." (p.15) Fittingly, then, treatment within this modern day Tower of Babel is the preserve of the ridiculously rich—as well as those with connections, yes.
But there are also those willing to sacrifice more than money in exchange for an immortality ticket. Detective Chief Inspector Oates calls them Eddies: poor people, presumably, who can be talked into confessing to anything—though in practice they tend to take the fall for murders—so long as they're assured a top-tier treatment at the end of whatever sentence they get. To wit, when a man dies very violently in the safe haven that the spa is meant to represent, and a groundskeeper admits to killing him, Oates' first priority is to establish whether Ali Farooz is an assassin or a patsy.
A better question to ask, perhaps: who among us doesn't?
As far back as in The Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the world's first literary works, we have dreamed as a people of sidestepping death; as far back as that, and further, immortality—whether through mythical or material means—has fascinated us in fiction and in fact.
According to certain scientists, these discoveries may be made mere decades from today, thus the promising premise of The Happier Dead. In the near future of Ivo Stourton's new book, eternal life is indeed achievable, but far from free, I'm afraid. You could spend your entire natural life putting every penny you earn in a pot and you'd still struggle to cough up the deposit.
But in a society where passing away has become an embarrassment, what price wouldn't you pay to avoid dying one day?
The magic happens in an egg-shaped structure so monolithic that it has altered the landscape of London, where Stourton stages the murder mystery at the haemorrhaging heart of The Happier Dead. The Great Spa can be seen from space, even, and "at its uppermost limit, the great red beacon on the top was so close to the rainclouds that the light illuminated them beneath with a cherry-red glow, giving the sky above [...] the look of a vast special effect, a stage show for the passing motorists." (p.15) Fittingly, then, treatment within this modern day Tower of Babel is the preserve of the ridiculously rich—as well as those with connections, yes.
But there are also those willing to sacrifice more than money in exchange for an immortality ticket. Detective Chief Inspector Oates calls them Eddies: poor people, presumably, who can be talked into confessing to anything—though in practice they tend to take the fall for murders—so long as they're assured a top-tier treatment at the end of whatever sentence they get. To wit, when a man dies very violently in the safe haven that the spa is meant to represent, and a groundskeeper admits to killing him, Oates' first priority is to establish whether Ali Farooz is an assassin or a patsy.