The Bathwater Conspiracy short-listed for the 2019 Alberta Book Publishing Awards!
Detective Carson “Mac” MacHenry can’t figure out why the Darmes are so interested in this one dead girl or why the secretive federal police have rushed the autopsy or why, a few days later, the records of the dead girl’s murder have been erased from all official government channels.
Even stranger to the detective is the manner of death - injuries consistent with a violent beating and sexual assault. Crimes rarely seen in Mac’s world.
In search of answers to Alfreda Longwell’s murder, Mac’s off-the-books investigation takes her from the halls of Alfreda’s university into the Decayed Area, a post-apocalyptic wasteland at the city’s edge - the domain of technophobic religious fundamentalists, scavengers and lunatics. When Mac and her partner Nguyen eventually uncover the details of a secret government project, the conspiracy threatens to topple a government.
Praise For The Bathwater Conspiracy
Janet Kellough, author of the Thaddeus Lewis historical mysteries, has turned her hand to science fiction, and this reader is very glad that she did. The Bathwater Conspiracy is one helluva good read.
Set in a post-apocalyptic world, it presents us with a female main character in the hard-boiled vein of V.I. Warshawski or Stephanie Plum. Carson MacHenry is a cynical cop investigating an impossible crime with horrific implications, one that the feds are determined to cover up. Characterizations are spot-on, the plot is fast-moving and elegantly woven, and the storytelling is seamless and utterly compelling. I would recommend this book highly to anyone who enjoys a well-written, thought-provoking futuristic police procedural. Like me, you're going to want to read more by this author.
-Arlene F. Marks, author of "The Accidental God".
"The Bathwater Conspiracy is a perfect blend of speculative fiction, modern police procedural, and gripping political intrigue that might have been written by a young Margaret Atwood. Regardless of the time and place, Carson MacHenry, slovenly, rebellious, curious, above all brave, is a detective for the ages. But her age is that of a world very much like ours, with one startling detail that truly makes the reader sit back and think. An original and daring book .
I can not wait to visit this distant, alien, yet oh so familiar world again in MacHenry’s next adventure.”
-Vicki Delany, national (US) bestselling author of The Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series and The Year Round Christmas Mysteries
"The Bathwater Conspiracy is one of the best SF mysteries I’ve read in years. A police procedural with the tone of a hard-boiled crime novel, in a post-apocalyptic setting with a twist. The characters are compelling, and inhabit a thoroughly imagined world crisp with details."
-Violette Malan, author of the Dhulyn and Parno Novels
"There's a distinct shortage of police procedurals in SF&F but Janet Kellough admirably fills the gap. The Bathwater Conspiracy is the type of book you'll want to read in a single session -- not only for the mystery but for the brilliantly stealth world building.
-Tanya Huff, bestselling author of the Blood Books, the Quarters Series & the Keeper’s Chronicles
"The book tosses you into the investigation from page 1, slowing only briefly to bring the reader up to speed on the world once you’re already embroiled in it. The setting and characters are very compelling, and serve to make the entire book a great read. If you love mysteries and speculative fiction mashed together, you’ll likely enjoy The Bathwater Conspiracy."
-Mad Scientist Journal, Spring 2018 Issue
"The Bathwater Conspiracy’ is a quietly subversive book that imagines a world without men.
I’ve read some very good pieces of speculative fiction recently that have confronted me with the things men do to women, from ‘The Southern Book Club’s Guide To Slaying Vampires’ with the vampire embodying all that is worst about the patriarchy through ‘Girls With Sharp Sticks’ and ‘The Grace Year’ which set women up in life and death struggles against the men controlling them. ‘The Bathwater Conspiracy’ takes a different, gentler but ultimately much more damning approach. It just makes the men disappear and wonders if we would miss them. The answer that I came away with was, ‘not so much.’
Set in a future where men have been extinct for generations and humanity has moved on, ‘The Bathwater Conspiracy’ follows the investigation of Detective Carson “Mac” MacHenry into the exceptionally violent murder of a young woman and the subsequent attempts of the Federal authorities to cover it up. It set Mac on a path that will reveal a secret that could change the world.
I was initially a little thrown by the gentle, low-key tone of this mystery. Then I came to see that the tone was part of the evocation of an all-woman world where even an experienced detective has difficulty imagining levels of violence and aggression that we would take for granted.
It’s actually quite a profound change, like suddenly not having any traffic noise in a city. It affects everything.
I also enjoyed the humour in this book. When Mac is researching ancient history to see what men were like, she finds that many religions imposed restrictions on how women dressed or even prevented them going out lest the men who see them are thrown into a frenzy of lust that they can’t control. Here’s her reaction:
‘If men were so unreliable as to go off the deep end whenever they saw a stray tress or two, wouldn’t it make more sense to lock them up and just let the women get on with their lives? Otherwise, it would be like having a dog that bites and insisting that the people on your street stay inside so they won’t get bitten.’
I now want more of Janet Kellough’s writing so I’ll be taking a look at her Thaddeus Lewis series of historical mysteries set in mid-nineteenth-century Canada."
-Mike Finn's Fiction: Book Reviews and Short Stories, March 2020.