Curfew
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3.0 • 3개의 평가
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- US$14.99
출판사 설명
Think The Handmaid's Tale but with the women in charge, set in a world where all men are electronically tagged and placed under strict curfew, and the murder investigation threatening to undo it all.
Imagine a near-future Britain in which women dominate workplaces, public spaces, and government. Where the gender pay gap no longer exists and motherhood opens doors instead of closing them. Where women are no longer afraid to walk home alone, to cross a dark parking lot, or to catch the last train.
Where all men are electronically tagged and not allowed out after 7 p.m.
But the curfew hasn’t made life easy for all women. Sarah is a single mother who happily rebuilt her life after her husband, Greg, was sent to prison for breaking curfew. Now he’s about to be released, and Sarah isn’t expecting a happy reunion, given that she’s the reason he was sent there.
Her teenage daughter, Cass, hates living in a world that restricts boys like her best friend, Billy. Billy would never hurt anyone, and she’s determined to prove it. Somehow.
Helen is a teacher at the local school. Secretly desperate for a baby, she’s applied for a cohab certificate with her boyfriend, Tom, and is terrified that they won’t get it. The last thing she wants is to have a baby on her own.
These women don’t know it yet, but one of them is about to be violently murdered. Evidence will suggest that she died late at night and that she knew her attacker. It couldn’t have been a man because a CURFEW tag is a solid alibi.
Isn’t it?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British author Cowie's provocative if flawed debut addresses the question: "Will men always be a threat?" Sixteen years into a near-future Britain in which all men are tagged, tracked, and restricted from leaving their homes between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m., an unidentified woman is found murdered in a city park. Old-school policewoman Pamela wants to consider male suspects, but colleagues are afraid that showing a failure of curfew will cause societal chaos. Flash back four weeks, to Sarah Wallace, who works in the tagging office and has recently divorced her husband for breaking curfew. She is at odds with her daughter, Cass Johnson, a high school student. Cass doesn't get along with teacher Helen Taylor, who's trying to get a cohab certificate with her boyfriend. The worldbuilding falls flat in the context of the real-life Covid-19 pandemic—men can't hold good jobs because they can't leave home at night, but the equivalent of smartphones and ubiquitous high-speed internet both exist. Stereotypical characters, both male and female, engage in obvious conflicts, and any surprise about what happened evaporates the moment the victim's identity is revealed. Hopefully, Cowie will do better next time.
