Even though this world has Neanderthals in it, we firmly
recognise it as post-Margaret Thatcher Britain. It is a not so subtle satire of
that area, when the miners’ strike was brutally suppressed by police with the
full support of the conservative government. This police brutality is echoed in
the character of Sergeant Alf Hucker, a bad tempered, Neanderthal hating paedophile.
I like the character of Zeezee as we see his ‘growth’ from docile
Neanderthal, who is incapable of lying or violence. To a lying, murdering, well
almost homo-sapien in behaviour. But we remain endeared by our Zeezee as his
heart is in the right place and he has the welfare and liberation of his people
in mind. This book has a lot of humour in it, and most of it is not too subtle
either; for example the name of sex worker and Hucker’s daughter Lovely
Cox-Hucker. I enjoyed reading this and there was enough plot to make this a
well balanced mix of satire and crime.
