What if the Earth turned upside down? Literally? Crops didn't grow where they used to, the climate changed completely, satellites fell from the sky, dogs and cats....You get the picture. That's the premise behind the world in The Broken Ones, but with one extra special detail: the ghosts.
The Broken Ones tells the story of Detective Oscar Mariani, who is the head of the Nine-Ten unit. The unit investigates crimes where the perpetrators claim that their ghost made them do it. After Gray Wednesday, when the world turned upside down, everyone got a ghost of their own. They lurk around, always there, looking like they did in life except for the holes where their eyes used to be. Imagine that. Your brother watching you shower, but without eyes, or your ex husband watching you every morning when you wake up, or your hot mom leaning over you while you eat. Initially it drives many people crazy, some kill themselves, some kill others. At first, a couple of people get off for their crimes claiming that their ghost made them do it. It doesn't take long for people to figure it out, and everyone is making the claim. The Nine-Ten Unit is formed to determine who is lying and who isn't. The problem is, many of the perpetrators aren't wrong. One woman kills her abusive husband, etc. etc. In the long run, the Nine-Ten Unit ends up letting a most people slide through the cracks, setting them free even though their ghosts had nothing to do with it. Needless to say, that's not the goal of the unit and the pressure is on at the office.
Not only that, Mariani has a mystery to solve, a potentially dirty cop, and a chip on his shoulder. This part of the novel isn't so uncommon. Mariani gets clues, tracks them down, runs around town and gets close to the truth, but not quite there. I'm not a huge mystery person, so I guess this one is OK. It kept me turning pages, but I was more interested in the ghosts: why they are there, and what their role is. It turns out to have less to do with the story than I hoped, but the sense of horror evoked by their presence is palpable.
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