The Chosen Seed - Sarah Pinborough

When I picked up The Chosen Seed by Sarah Pinborough, I should have been more careful as it is actually the final book in a trilogy. But it didn't really matter when I was reading it, as it is a book that stands alone and can be read without knowing the back story, which is well explained as you go along.  Cass Jones is a renegade detective trying to avoid arrest in a London that is living in fear from being infected with a disease called Strain II, that has been spreading among the homeless and drug users of London.  He is being hunted for a murder that he did not commit, and has gone into hiding after being rescued after he was shot in the shoulder by a mysterious couple.

But a very dangerous man has made it his mission to spread a new, even more lethal strain of Strain II and is targeting the more affluent, working population of the city, spreading terror in busy streets, pubs and transport hubs of the capital.  So is there a link between this elusive serial killer handing out terrifying doses of death in the London night and a sinister group called the Network and an institution called The Bank, that now effectively controls the country's finances and economy?

As Cass Jones recuperates from his wound he has just one goal, which is to find his missing nephew and clear his name.  But all the evidence seems to point back to a secretive character called Mr Bright, and Cass Jones soon realises that he has to discover the secrets surrounding Mr Bright if he is ever to find his missing nephew Luke.  So who is this mysterious man who seems to have had so much influence in Jones's family history, leaving only tantalising clues about the depth of his involvement and his manipulation of events from the shadows?

The disgraced detective has become a pariah at his station, where most of his ex-colleagues seem convinced of his guilt, but two of his former work associates, Detectives Hask and Ramsey, are beginning to have doubts and start discretely investigating Cass Jones's links to the murders, trying to determine once and for all his innocence or guilt. But even within the force itself, they cannot uncover any information about Mr Bright and find to their dismay that any investigations they make into his background and activities are blocked at the highest level.

But neither Cass Jones nor the human friends working to clear his name have any idea of the magnitude and importance of what game they have really stumbled into, and how it could be so very nearly the end of the world for them all.  Jones will have to learn and accept the truth about his family and what he really is before he can be instrumental in averting the coming Armageddon and save his nephew and the rest of humanity from destruction.  Loyalties will be questioned and allegiances shifted, before he can really get to the bottom of the enigma that is Mr Bright.

I would have a big juicy hamburger and a big bowl of chips with plenty of ketchup to go along with this one, as you will need the carbs to keep up with the cracking pace.  As Cass Jones has his eyes opened to the true nature of the world around him and how nothing is as it looks on the surface, he has hard decisions to make, decisions that can affect the fate of all mankind.  So will he find his nephew in time to save him?  Will he solve the puzzle of the mysterious 'glow' and find a way to penetrate the secrets of Mr Bright?  And will Ramsey and Hask catch the killer who is so callously infecting the population of London with the lethal infection Strain II, and discover the truth about the innocence of their former colleague and friend Cass Jones in doing so?  And will any of them be able to penetrate the secrets of the shadowy Network and The Bank in time?