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music: The Clash - "Charlie Don't Surf"

Cayce Pollard is a 'coolhunter', predicting the hottest trends, haunted by her father's disappearance during 9/11. While in London to evaluate a redesign of a famous corporate logo, her employer finds her another job: finding the maker of an online film clip which is gradually growing in length, creating a buzz that she has already become familiar with. But as she travels around to find more about it, something sinister is also following her.

This is start of another trilogy, and beginning to read it, I felt like coming home, the writing feeling so familiar. This time though the story is not of a future, but present (though now a present in the past, as phone designs move on, The Face magazine has ceased to exist, and there's no Virgin Megastores around). Present of circa 2003. There is a nod into the past in the(view spoiler)[ big WWII-era dig in Damien's filming place - I especially like the finding of a whole plane, with its pilot still inside; in the buying and seeling of the calculators from that era (creepy), in the old Cold War rivalries and ally-connections lingering, (hide spoiler)] and also in Cayce's (pronounced 'Case') allergy-like dislike also extending to things of certain eras, incl. Nazi Germany and Eastern Germany. This allergy sensitivity mostly appears towards certain labels and objects: Mickey Mouse, the Michelin Man, Tommy Hilfiger... though it seems her (view spoiler)[chemicals have rearranged themselves after her last meeting with Dorotea, the drug used on Cayce having done somethig to neutralise the allergy tendecy (hide spoiler)].

This is a Blue Ant trilogy, which is the firm she works for her, and its leader, Hubertus Bigend, will appear also in later book, it seems. This book does talk about branding and advertisement world, but then slips into something. Finding closure with your past... But also about buildings and roads and cities... and I also kept noticing what Cayce was eating or drinking. Her struggle with jetlag, and feeling like her soul was traveling much more behind her, arriving later than her body, feels familiar (jetlag does get worse with age, though she's around 32 here).

I was a bit surprised about the plot moving to (view spoiler)[Russia, with its 'dark weight', but Cayce's father's involvemets and the Cold War still being pondered over in some circles then didn't make the surprise so great. The Volkova sisters were interesting, I would've liked to read more scenes with them, and what their uncle was like - seems like he's somewhat like a pair to Bigend. (hide spoiler)] It seems the pre-9/11 life is lingering, yet what is has become post-this is not yet quite apparent in this book.

I've experienced some of that Camden weekend crush, and the name Cayce used for it, the Children's Crusade, was I guess cute. Took me a while to realise what she meant with 'mirror-world'ness: objects made in the country they were in (like British cars, British scissors, etc.). Her decision to dress minimalistically and to keep her NY home spartan is no doubt a way to keep herself together (that allergy, and then her father's disappearance, must have had some influence). It was lovely that her friendship with Parkaboy (view spoiler)[seems to have grown into something more, and her longing for a relationship had a good end, and also that she got more closure on her father's fate - though was it a disappearance or an anonymous death somewhere in the ruins is not known (hide spoiler)].

The book feels like it started with something, but ended with something else, yet both ends feel good to me. I hope Cayce finds a less-dramatic, peaceful future after this. And I think reading this book at this moment was just right for me, though a look into a past now. (I miss Virgin Megastore! And The Face magazine.) A perfect choice of a read, I like that.