A very quirky and strange little novel - some parts very gripping and other parts a little confusing.

This book is strange, and it knows that. It is set in the present day, but we start with a flash forward into a dystopian future. The scenes within the anarchists' lair were really interesting, showing a unique side to humanity. However, the opening to the book was quite slow and having flashes forward into the future left me, honestly, quite confused.
I'd probably give Travelyan another chance, but this wasn't my favourite.

Claudia is a strange book – and one that rather self-consciously sets out to be strange.

The novel opens with a pacy section with a contract killer, set in some dystopian future. Then we plunge back into the present day with Claudia Tarkand (irritatingly referred to as Dia), a fairly ordinary office worker in Manchester introducing us to her dull daily routine. Despite her humdrum existence, it seems that Claudia was brought up in some kind of hippy commune and knew Samson Glaze, a wealthy businessman. So when Samson turns up out of the blue, asking Claudia to help rescue his son Reggie from some anarchist outfit called The Ranters – and as Claudia’s personal life starts to unravel – she decides to get involved.

Some scenes in the book are excellent – especially those set in Claudia’s office and those set in the anarchists’ lair. They paint a wry picture of people playing a role – the spineless manager, the guileless co-worker, the anarchists discussing the merits of living with various previous protest groups. But there are other sections that work less well. In particular, the opening sections are slow, the final third of the novel is a bewildering mess of conspiracies and counter-conspiracies, and the interleaving future world sections hinder rather than help.

The characters, too, never feel real. It is as though they are marionettes, being made to dance for the reader but not having a life beyond the pages of the novel.

So overall, it is difficult to describe exactly what the novel is. Is it an apocalyptic disaster novel? Is it a quirky oddball novel? Is it a thriller? Is it a comedy? Is it a parody? The reader is really not clear about this – and that’s not a good thing. The momentum takes time to pick up, and then when it is lost as the “action” ramps up, it never picks up again. Rather than being involved in the story, the reader is left outside looking in.

Three stars? Maybe that’s on the generous side, but there are moments in the middle that are fun.