Wanted: Dead – Mike Brooks

After a recent-ish set of Necromunda short stories teased us with brief glimpses of the underhive, Mike Brooks’ novella Wanted: Dead finally affords us a longer visit. This tells the story of Jarene, a hardened Escher ganger and member of the Wild Cats gang, who finds herself in a tight spot when an ambush goes awry. Life in the underhive is tough at the best of times, but when the Wild Cats find wind up outlawed, hunted and on the run, Jarene has to dig deep and make some difficult decisions if she’s to survive, and protect those she loves the most.

Perhaps unusually for a Black Library story, this is at its heart a book about family, and the lengths Jarene is prepared to go to in order to look after her family – in this case predominantly her partner, Quinne. Brooks tackles the underhive, its power structures and the dynamics within the Wild Cats in a way that we haven’t seen before, grounding things about as close to reality as you can get in the 41st millennium and making sure the narrative tension is always to do with the characters working out how to survive, rather than any grand sense of loyalty to something bigger than themselves. It makes for an engaging, relatable read that draws you into the characters and the story right away.

As a setting this is very much Necromunda as it should be, all grimy and rough around the edges, clearly embedded in the 40k universe but worlds away from the big battlefields or the powerful institutions. Populated by milliasaurs and mush slugs, drug dealers, influence peddlers and fixers, it’s dirty and dangerous and absolutely brilliant. Into this world walk characters who (mostly) fight because they have to, because if they don’t stand up for themselves then someone will stand on them – not because they want to, or because they enjoy it. Brooks hints at a bigger picture for the Eschers, but keeps the focus on the here and now, and the immediate bonds between gangers – and conflict between gangs.

It’s worth saying, as well, that an all-female cast of protagonists lends the story a genuinely fresh feel, enhanced by Brooks’ smart exploration of how an entirely female House would think and operate. That means praying to the Empress (because why would they identify with a male god?) and loving other women – with potentially the first lesbian protagonist in a Black Library book – for example, concepts which in Brooks’ capable hands feel entirely appropriate to the characters. Add to all of that a plot which is pacy and exciting (try to avoid the synopsis on the back of the book, which is SPOILERIFIC) with diversions and drama aplenty, and carefully-measured lashings of edge-of-the-seat action, and you’ve got a recipe for a compelling story. Despite its brevity there’s a lot to enjoy here, and all the signs point to Brooks being one to watch.

Wanted: Dead is book 6 in the Black Library Novella Series 1. You can read reviews of the rest of this series by following this link.

Click here to buy Wanted: Dead.