Thanks very much to the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this title. Many thanks, Dave

This one took me a while to get to. I had a hard time getting into it. But after I did, I did end up enjoying it. Bridgeman is a great author that I want to continue reading. And The Subjugate was one of those books - slow start and massive payoff after hanging with it.

In a very religious, rural community - a train ride from the nearest metropolis - a brutal rape/murder has occurred. This is shocking to the pious locals as everyone is devout or in training to become a true believer. Sent to investigate the murder are a pair of detectives from the city, Salvi Brentt and Mitch Grenville, both with haunting pasts that neither wishes to discuss.

Brent and Grenville discover that this small community is filled with possible, even likely suspects as The Children of Christ church community operates the Solme Complex. The Solme Complex is a rehabilitation center for some of the worst, most hardened criminals who are put through a rigorous process (and maybe a few beatings) to become docile Believers. They begin their journey as Subjugates and move to become Serenes. In addition to their rehabilitation, the Subjugates and Serenes provide labor to the community, and that's become attractive to some city dwellers who decide that a peaceful community with free labor, is a nice change from the busy city.

Complicating the investigation is that the Solme Complex insists that their Subjugates and Serenes couldn't possibly have committed a crime, because of the thoroughness of their rehabilitation, but they also won't let Salvi or Mitch conduct any interviews without tremendous oversight and conditions.

The crimes and bodies add up in the small town, and loner Grenville shows some unusual behavior, such that Salvi isn't sure what she should do about her own partner. Could he be trusted? Could he have committed the crimes?

I've never read anything by Amanda Bridgeman before this, but I found this mystery really engaging. There's the clear 'whodunnit' mystery, but there's the personal mysteries Salvi's past (why does she seem so affected by the Children of Christ Church) and Mitch's(his girlfriend was killed and he was a suspect for a time).

The characters (mostly) stand out, unique from one another. I did have some trouble identifying the different Subjugates and Serenes (they are identified by numbers), but some of that may be by design as they are in essence each reduced to nothing to be built back up in Christ.

This was a smooth read, and a page-turner. It was easy to get caught up in this story and it built, bit by bit, with a few red herrings and possible suspects along the way.

While there are some science fiction aspects to this novel, there really don't have to be. This is first and foremost, a detective mystery story and the science fiction parts are negligible. It doesn't take away from what works really well, but it could be disappointing if you are looking for a science fiction story.

This is definitely worth reading and I look forward to the next book in the Salvi Brentt mystery series.

Looking for a good book? If you enjoy a good mystery, with characters who are flawed, and a touch of science fiction thrown in, then pick up Admanda Bridgeman's <em>The Subjugate</em>.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Normally I enjoy science fiction/noir blends, but I didn’t enjoy The Subjugate as much as I expected.  


Amanda Bridgeman does a good job juxtaposing the technology free world of the Children of Christ and the rich in technology world of Detectives Salvi Brentt and Mitch Grenville.  The detectives are fish out of water investigating the murder of a young woman of the Children of Christ. Suspicion falls on the Subjugates of the Solme Complex. ( Subjugates are violent criminals or sexual predators conditioned and neurally edited to find violence and sexuality anathema.  Those who successfully complete the experimental program become Serenes. Serenes and certain Subjugates are allowed into the town of the Children of Christ to work. )


I quickly became frustrated with the detectives, particularly Mitch, as they stubbornly pursue pet theories and ignore evidence.  Boredom followed frustration. Much of the novel was repetitive, and the plot was predictable, so much so that I knew what was going to happen long before the end.  Bridgeman makes the culprit obvious from almost the beginning.


My guess is that Bridgeman wanted to make The Subjugate a piece of social commentary, and overdid it.  As in A Clockwork Orange, conditioning is violent and painful, akin to torture. Like those that participated in the Stanford Prison Experiment, people forced to torture others became more violent and more extreme.  Who is evil, the subjugate who can no longer choose violence or the “healer” who regularly applies violence as a means of forcing change. A lesser question raised regards our reliance on technology - aid or addiction?  


Amanda Bridgeman’s intentions are good, but The Subjugate is flawed - too predictable, too repetitive and the leads behave too much like amateurs.  


3 / 5


I received a copy of The Subjugate from the publisher and Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.


— Crittermom

The Subjugate by Amanda Bridgeman is a science fiction crime novel and the first book of the author's that I've read. Although it has intrinsic science fiction elements, it felt a more like a crime book with most of the story revolving around a series of religiously-charged rape-and-murders of women.

Two troubled homicide detectives race to find a serial killer in a town filled with surgically reformed murderers, in this captivating near-future SF thriller.

In a small religious community rocked by a spree of shocking murders, Detectives Salvi Brentt and Mitch Grenville find themselves surrounded by suspects. The Children of Christ have a tight grip on their people, and the Solme Complex neurally edit violent criminals - Subjugates - into placid servants called Serenes. In a town where purity and sin, temptation and repression live side by side, everyone has a motive. But as the bodies mount up, the frustrated detectives begin to crack under the pressure: their demons are coming to light, and who knows where that blurred line between man and monster truly lies.

This was very much a crime novel with the trappings of science fiction. Yes, some of the science fictional elements were essential parts of the plot, but the murder-solving part of the story would have worked just as well without them, with only minor tweaks. The premise of religiously-motivated murders in a small and insular religious town would have worked just as easily with an ordinary prison next door instead of a brain-washing facility. The idea of brain washing criminals to make them contributing members of society is an interesting one to explore, but I didn't feel that this book explored it in much depth. The impracticality of the system was only touched upon, ditto the morality. In the end it felt more like window-dressing than an integral part of the story.

When I was reading, I thought this book started out OK with a tolerably interesting premise an a seemingly rapid pace. But it wasn't long before I started to feel bogged down in the repetitive writing style (a lot of people spent a lot of time looking at things and each other in various ways) and not that interested in the plot. Sure, the murders needed to be solved and the culprit wasn't super obvious (there was a small pool of possibilities but it seemed like they all had roughly equal means and opportunity for much of the book), but the protagonist spent a lot of time being distracted by less likely possibilities and also her own past problems.

(Also, a thing that annoyed me quite a bit was that the author talked about AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) but then fixated on AR when it was quite clear from the story that VR was what was actually happening. And then there were the haptic VR suits which made no sense as described. The gory details of how they could even function as described were completely skipped over (and given how many other extraneous details we got, that seemed particularly egregious). The whole section with the detectives investigating in "AR" struck me as both sloppy writing and a bit gratuitous.)

As you can probably surmise from the rest of this review, I did not enjoy this book. By the end, it was a trial to finish. Even ignoring the plot and science fictional aspects I mentioned above, a stronger editorial hand would have made a big difference. I can't recommend this book, but I'm sure less picky readers who enjoy reading crime could find something to enjoy.

2.5 / 5 stars

First published: November 2018, Angry Robot
Series: Don't think so
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

I would round up to a 4.5!

What an amazing read. A great mixture of sci-fi and mystery this book took me into a world were technology and religion are almost at war with each other. When murders start to take place in a pull away religious town it is up to detectives from the bigger city to figure it out. I loved learning about the technologies that had developed in the world, and how things had taken a turn from the worst. The treatments for those who had committed crimes was an interesting twist to the books and added a lot to the story as a whole.

I did not guess the ending which for me is the first time in a while I hadn't guessed who had done it which was a refreshing change. This book kept me guessing and wondering the whole time which I loved!!!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinions and review.

If you're looking for a new detective novel to fall in love with, you have to read "The Subjugate" by Amanda Bridgeman. Set in the near future, the world has become even more tech obsessed than it is now. People don't interact with each other. There are tech junkies, who are just like regular junkies, but will do anything for a new app or some screen time. And in the middle of it all, there is a town called Bountiful who will do anything to keep the devil, aka technology, out of their lives. That is, until a serial killer pops up.

Nothing like this has ever happened before to the people of Bountiful, though they have a very special facility beside their town. Called the Solme Complex, it's a building for rehabilitating hardened criminals, mostly rapists and murderers, and essentially lobotomizing them with chemicals and turning them from subjugates, to serene's. People with supposedly no bad feelings, and a fully erased past. They are known by their silver "halo" that rests around the back of their heads, and their very quiet and passive temperament.

Following Detective Salvi Brentt and her partner Mitch, the two find themselves being called into Bountiful to find a very unusual body. A young girl has been found face down in her kitchen, strangled to death with the word "pure" cut into her. Most of the book is the two detectives interviewing people in their town and trying to figure out what really happened while the bodies begin to pile up.

I loved this book because it was a slow burn, and that's very unusual to me. I really enjoyed trying to figure out what was going on while the book was going, and still being completely shocked by the ending. The characters were very realistic, they dealt with their own problems and the new ones that began to pop up around them very well, and way better than I would be able to handle them. The technology in the book was also really interesting to learn about, and the entire thing was written in such a way that I could imagine it and get right into the story very easily.

Overall I loved reading this, and I think you should check it out if you get the chance. If you love detective novels and serial killers set in the future, you're going to love this one.

Thanks for reading!
(Radioactivebookreviews.wordpress.com)

The Subjugate is deftly written, pairing the thrill of a crime novel with an analysis on technology and its impact on the world at large. Central to the novel is a critique of methods of control, examining religion, technology, and the criminal justice system. Bridgeman doesn’t shy away from these debates, presenting strong opinions on the reformation of criminals, and the positive and negative aspects of religion. Overall, it’s a smart, well-crafted story that drew me in until the very end.

There have been some great science fiction crime/thriller novels this year. The Subjugate stands at the top of the mix due to the obvious talent of its author. Bridgeman masterfully weaves her story, sending you on a wild goose chase, giving you an inkling of a solution, only to turn things back around unexpectedly. The best qualities of a thriller are at work here, and she plays on them expertly.

Full review will be posted at: https://reviewsandrobots.com/2018/11/06/the-subjugate-crime-religion-technology/

Great book with a very interesting idea about how criminals could be 'saved' and integrated back into society. Really enjoyed reading about the criminal side of things and would love for a book to be made about the running of the Solme Complex.

Once I was about halfway through the book I was hooked, but the beginning didn't capture my attention for some reason and I would just read a couple of pages here and there. I would say, one thing for me is I did find the killer to be a bit obvious, but overall it was very well written with an intriguing main character.

If you read it as a straight murder mystery you may not enjoy it. Too many played out tropes.

But, there are quite a few thought provoking ideas on the future of technology, religion, and our justice system. Can technology get so advanced that some people retreat backwards? Can some criminals ever be truly rehabilitated?

Set in the near-future where technology and religion occupy opposite ends of the same spectrum, “The Subjugate” is a police procedural that flirts with philosophical topics such as morality, redemption and whether the ends justify the means. Detectives Brentt and Grenville are assigned to a homicide outside of the technological underbelly that was formerly San Francisco, located in a tech-free religious outpost where it appears even the most ardent churchgoer is hiding a dark secret. However, the list of suspects appears endless due to the proximity of the Solme Complex – an experimental prison where violent criminals undergo extensive brainwashing and torture to become placid servants called Serenes. Could one of these men have broken their programming and committed the crime, or is the perpetrator closer to home?

Amanda Bridgeman’s neo-noir novel is gripping from the outset, dealing with the juxtaposition of the futuristic tech-focused landscape of the big city against the simple, pure moral values of Bountiful. The plain-living, tech-free people of the town are reminiscent of the Amish, and how they live in an enclosed community free from the temptations of technology. Bridgeman alludes to a catastrophic event called 'The Crash' which saw a lot of people move away from technology to a more low-fi existence. From the clues given in the book, it seems like it was some terrorist attack that hacked into people's aural interfaces to cause chaos, possibly even controlling others actions remotely. Despite this, the majority of the world continues to rely on AI, AR and VR technology for both professional and leisure activities, stopping short of in-built aural tech.

Told from the perspective of Detective Brentt, “The Subjugate” is one of those murder mysteries that begins to infect the personal lives of the detectives investigating the case, and it is great to see how the characters troubled histories influence their decisions during their investigation, and how they struggle to work through their issues as partners. The relationship between Brentt and Grenville is almost as thrilling as the murder investigation itself, and Bridgeman does a tremendous job at blending their own stories into the crimes they have to solve. There is one key sequence where the two detectives finally unburden themselves which is an absolute page-turner, and the tension (both sexual and otherwise) radiates off the page. There is definitely a cinematic quality to the novel, and it has the makings of a brilliant science-fiction crime thriller. Stick someone like Luc Besson behind the camera, and you have a cult movie on your hands.

One of the most unsettling aspects of the novel, aside from the gruesome murders committed by the Bountiful killer, is the emotionless Subjugates and Serenes – former violent criminals effectively lobomotised into becoming subserviant slaves for the community. Each one is a suspect to the crimes, and their sinister calmness would make for an excellent visual on the big screen. The book's cover depicts one of the Subjugates, demonstrating how eerie and creepy-looking these emotionally burned-out prisoners are. It is through these characters that Bridgeman focuses on the notion of redemption and whether man has the right to effectively erase another man's persona in order to redeem them. There are some conflicting moments where these former rapists and murderers are shown in a sympathetic light, causing both the protagonist and the reader to question whether it is possible to forgive past transgressions. Set against the religious backdrop of Bountiful, and you have a solid hook that defines the narrative and sets the novel apart from others in the same sub-genre.

Extraordinarily well-written and tense as hell towards the end, “The Subjugate” is a novel that will stay with me for some time. Reminiscent of films as diverse as Blade Runner and Witness, Amanda Bridgeman's murder mystery had me guessing right up until the end with plenty of plausible suspects peppered throughout the book. A literal “whodunnit” up to the very end, “The Subjugate” is a rewarding read for science-fiction and murder mysteries fans alike. I loved everything about the book from the main concept of the Subjugates and Serenes to the complicated relationship between the lead characters – it may sound like a cliché, but I couldn't put this one down. Fully deserving of a big-screen adaptation, “The Subjugate” is definitely one of my favourite reads of the year!