Book Review: Debt Collector Season 1 by Susan Kaye Quinn
What’s your life worth on the open market?
A debt collector can tell you precisely.Lirium plays the part of the grim reaper well, with his dark trenchcoat, jackboots, and the black marks on his soul that every debt collector carries. He’s just in it for his cut, the ten percent of the life energy he collects before he transfers it on to the high potentials, the people who will make the world a better place with their brains, their work, and their lives. That hit of life energy, a bottle of vodka, and a visit from one of Madam Anastazja’s sex workers keep him alive, stable, and mostly sane… until he collects again. But when his recovery ritual is disrupted by a sex worker who isn’t what she seems, he has to choose between doing an illegal hit for a girl whose story has more holes than his soul or facing the bottle alone–a dark pit he’s not sure he’ll be able to climb out of again.
This dark and gritty future-noir is about a world where your life-worth is tabulated on the open market and going into debt risks a lot more than your credit rating.
Forgive me for gushing, but I absolutely loved this season and could not put it down. Quinn creates a world that we are immediately immersed in. A world where your life force can be taken or given at any moment. The premise is what drew me to this series, the idea that our lives are only worthwhile if we are contributing to society, and when our costs to society (monetarily, medically or otherwise) become greater than our contribution the end is near.
Lirium is a flawed character and I love him for that. He does his job collecting debt and paying out to people deemed worthy by the Agency. Being the grim reaper is a dark job, one that Lirium struggles with every time he pays out to a client. The nothingness that exists inside of him is fed by his vices: women and booze, until it’s time to go to work again. Then one day, and one girl, change everything.
The Debt Collector series has everything I love in a book: great character development, a bit of mystery, science experiments, romance, the mob and a corrupt government. Quinn does an amazing job of giving just enough information to keep you wanting more. Every character has a story and as we learn more and more about each of them we appreciate their flaws and perfection. At over 400 pages total I was skeptical of the book being too lengthy or drawn out but it was neither of those. Every page had me wanting more.
This is by no means a light hearted book. It tackles a lot of dark issues about power, money and the value of a human life. There is hope, loss and a lot of action. The balance is perfectly done and leaves you wanting more.
