This felt like a graphic novel – the vivid descriptions and wild action scenes unfolded in my mind like a comic book. But no comic book has writing like this:

Autopsies aren’t as bad as people make out. There’s a stink, for sure. In fact there’s all kinds of stink from all kinds of different places, and there’s wet stuff. But mostly what there is is a wonderful, broken thing. Most times the interior landscape is hidden, and we only get to see it when it goes wrong, but there’s an astonishing beauty beneath the skin. We are remarkable.

I’ve read and loved Gnomon and The Gone-Away World by Harkaway, and this was much more straightforward and digestible, while still being an absolute treat. He’s a fantastic writer (and I just learned today that his father was John Le Carre!), and this book is a ton of fun.