SF Novel by Mostly Mystery Writer

And here's another one I can't remember. I've already posted it on the "Name That Book" board here and the "What's the Name of That Book" group over at Goodreads. Here's what I remember.

This SF book was written by a writer known more for mysteries. Came out back in the 80s or 90s, maybe even the early 2000s. Set in a dystopian future. A group of criminals, bandits or whatever, all males, numbering around 4-6. One member is needlessly violent. One is a young man or boy with retardation or some other mental handicap. I think he was the main character. The boy stops the group leader from killing the violent one at one point.
They break into a home where there's a small gap in the perimeter scanners of the home and this is where the incident of the boy stopping the violent one being killed occurs. I only read about 1/4-1/3 of the book, so I don't know how it ends or what the major story theme was. It was a full length novel, not a short story.
The setting was, I think, a wasteland with isolated pockets of modern technology. The home they break into was off by itself, I think. The book was recent or new when I read it.
I think the group leader wanted to kill the violent one because he had needlessly killed one of the people in the house they had invaded.
I need suggestions of a specific book, not just an author. I've had this question up over at Goodreads for a long while and had no luck. Many authors have been suggested, but none have been it.
I suspect it's an obscure, flop book by someone well known.

Link to the old thread so you can see what and who has already been suggested.

https://www.librarything.com/topic/238101

As I said above, I suspect it's an obscure, flop book by someone well known, so suggestions of just an author probably won't help. I've also been through the list of books with mentally challenged characters and nothing matched.

Isnt it strange how we can powerfully connect with a book,it strikes some chord within us,and then we feel a bit stupid when we cant even remember author or title,but somehow it has a grip on us? I have several books like that!! lol
One slender chance. Are you familiar with Worlds Without End? On the home page there is a section under WWE resources called ''Books published by Year'' There are loads of book titles there,you may be lucky.
eg for the year 2000 they list 574 titles,with covers and you can click to blurbs.All sorts of odd stuff and a lot of work,but its a pretty good resource for obscure stuff. WWE members have added all sorts of offbeat stuff over the years.lol. I'm doing a challenge A Century of Reading, to read one book from each year 1920-2019,and have found that sorted by year resource invaluable in locating books for particular years. But its so tempting to wander off to browse interesting titles.Open library has quite a lot of such stuff available if you locate the correct book. Good luck!

> 2 A Century of Reading

That sounds interesting. The WWE website seounds very tempting. I could lose hours of my life there.

It does sound like A Clockwork Orange even though you say it isn't; that came out in 1962. I remember reading the Penguin edition in the 1970s/1980s, could the book you read have been a reprint? The synopsis does sound like someone riffing off Burgess; Kubrick's film of A Clockwork Orange 1971 film was released in 1971.

Also, it would help if you could give some idea of the nationality - was it an American author? I'm guessing it was an American publication given your location.

Skimming through Worlds Without End 1962-1980, the only 2 mystery writers to stand out are:

Bill Pronzini: http://www.worldswithoutend.com/author.asp?ID=2582
John D MacDonald: http://www.worldswithoutend.com/author.asp?ID=1761

You may also want to take a look at Only Lovers Left Alive - http://www.worldswithoutend.com/novel.asp?ID=22255

Also spotted P D James: The Children of Men (http://www.worldswithoutend.com/novel.asp?id=3125)

Might be a good idea to skim the author list: http://www.worldswithoutend.com/authors_index.asp

Definitely not "A Clockwork Orange" which takes place in an urban area and I read a couple of weeks ago. My lost book is set in some much more remote area. This jogs my memory, though. In my book the group of young men characters are the only ones we meet other than the victims of the home invasion.

Also definitely not "The Children of Men". I started that and it wasn't it.

I think the author was American or Canadian.

Thanks, Maddz.

Thanks, Dustydigger. Yes, I'll be looking into Worlds Without End.

And yes, it is surprising how strongly I remember it, even though I didn't finish it.

A bump up.

Recalling A Clockwork Orange, I seem to recall although the main story was set in London, the crime that Alex is convicted for was in the country, along with another crime.

The other thing is that the author may have written under a pseudonym.

For some reason I just saw this thread. If you're still looking, can you have been thinking of The Second Angel by Philip Kerr? He was from Scotland, and mostly known for his Bernie Gunther mystery stories set in WW2 era Germany.

> The Second Angel is about a gang who break into a blood bank on the Moon. It's notable for having lots of footnotes and for being told from the viewpoint of an AI. It's also an excellent novel. At the time it was published, the only Gunther books were the original Berlin Noir trilogy, and Kerr was better known for thrillers (one of which was adapted for television).

>11 iansales: "It's also an excellent novel."

I might have to look for that book, myself, then. I'm a big fan of the Gunther novels, although the quality does go up and down a bit. I'm about 3/4 through the series at this point. I remember reading that it was many years before Kerr returned to Gunther after those first three books. Somewhere I read a quote from him saying that he hadn't intended to wait so long before returning to the character, but that other projects had gotten in the way.

>12 rocketjk: The first three Gunther books were his first three books. I've read everything Kerr wrote, except for his children's series and the Scott Manson books. Some of his thrillers are, frankly, potboilers, nowhere near as good as the Gunther novels. The Second Angel, however, is a clever sf novel.

Incidentally, if you like the Gunther novels, I recommend HHhH, which is non-fiction, sort of, about Heydrich, and covers the same ground as one of the Gunther novels.

>13 iansales: & >12 rocketjk:

Jumping in here to support the praise for Philip Kerr. I have read and enjoyed several of his Gunther books. I have, but have not yet read, his early SF, Gridiron.

In 1997* my wife and I were lucky enough to attend a session he gave at a writers' conference in Dublin. Apart from reading from one of his books, and answering questions in general about his writing, he described his research with the Moscow police/militia. He spend a couple of days with them. On his first day they gave him a bullet-proof vest and brought him out on their patrols. The second day he was with them an new officer joined them. He saw the bullet-proof vest they had given him and tore strips of the other officers for giving him a Russian bullet-proof vest instead of an American one. It turned out the cops had all bought their own American vests because they did not reckon the Russian ones were any good. The officers who gave it to him on the first day thought it was a great joke.

I must say I really enjoyed his session. Sorry he is no longer around.

>13 iansales: You have pushed HHhH up my tbr mountain. I also have The 7th Function of Language on the shelf.

*I remember which year it was because my youngest is 24 years old and we brought him to the event as a three-week old baby. That was fun.

>13 iansales: & >14 pgmcc: HHhH looks interesting, indeed. When my wife and I visited Prague about 17 years ago (wow!), we visited the church basement where the men who'd assassinated Heydrich hid out awaiting safe passage out of the country. They were betrayed to the Germans and that cellar became the site of their last stand and eventual suicides. A chilling room to stand in, to be sure.

>14 pgmcc: and >15 rocketjk: A friend of mine knew Kerr. They met while both were attending a literary conference in Poland.

The novel set in Russia, Dead Meat, was televised as Grushko, but I missed it when it was broadcast and I've never managed to find a copy on DVD.

Gridiron is the one about the building management computer that goes wrong. I remember it being okay, although The X-Files had covered exactly the same story in an episode. He seemed to go through a phase where he churned out potboilers - Gridiron, Esau, The Shot, A Five Year Plan... But his others novels are very good.

The 7th Function of Language is lots of fun. Be prepared to go down a lot of rabbit holes afterward :-) Avoid the film adaptation of HHhH - it's a straight-up dramatisation of the killing of Heydrich, and nothing like the book.

>10 rocketjk: No, not The Second Angel, though that does sound interesting. Thanks for the suggestion.

Another bump after a year and a half.

Bumping my old stuff up.

Another bump.