Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

This book is set in London and is a story about murder.
There is a huge cast of well developed characters.
It is exceptionally well written
A great book

Brilliant novel, well written and such contemporary subject matter. Perfectly executed and an enthralling read. Highly recommend this book.

Eldine Matthews, a black teenager, is stabbed to death at a bus stop by a racist gang. Twenty years later, his killers appear to be above the law and beyond prosecution. But the crime is not forgotten, certainly not by a cynical former reporter, Carl Hyatt, and a cast of oddballs who all coalesce around a desire to see justice.

This is a novel that is firmly inspired by true events. The Eldine Matthews murder is obviously inspired by that of Stephen Lawrence, the perpetrators and their ability to thumb their noses at the judicial system, inspired by the killers of Stephen. The plot also mirrors true events and the author has clearly done his research. In the novel, police corruption, gangsterism, and the killer’s relationship with organised crime figures who are able to bribe police, plays a large part in their ability to evade being called to account. There is much evidence that this is how Stephen’s killers were able to usurp the system.

As someone with a huge interest in the Stephen Lawrence case, police corruption and organised crime, and someone who’s extensively read around the subject of the Lawrence murder and the corruption that plagued London’s Metropolitan Police in the 1990’s, I really wanted to enjoy this book. But I’m afraid that for all The Treatment’s brilliance - and there is brilliance here: beautiful writing, intriguing characterisation - this novel is just a little too rambling. Personally, I felt that there were a few too many digressions and the plot needed to be a little tighter.

As I say, this is a book that I really wanted to love. I really enjoy novels like this - James Elroy’s reimagining of the Kennedy Assassination in his American Underworld trilogy, David Peace’s books on the Yorkshire Ripper & Miner’s strike (and a quote from Peace praising the novel appears on the front cover) - books that look back at an important and controversial event and through the prism of fiction reveal the dirty truths, the corruption, the venality, and the injustice. This book does all of that, but my personal thoughts are that it would have been more effective if it had been a bit more focused.

This is a really unusual novel and probably one I wouldn’t have found in the course of my usual reading choices. I’m really glad I chose to give it a try. Written almost completely like a stream of consciousness, this is a novel that feels very relevant. The events feel entirely real, probably because they echo the murder of teenager Stephen Lawrence. Young, black teenager Eldine Matthews is murdered at a South London bus stop. The racist gang, L Troop, who are responsible for the killing, escape justice. Now, twenty years later, the leaders of the gang are untouchable by the law. Through years of police corruption and intimidating witnesses, they have carried on with their violence. However, even twenty years later, Eldine’s murder is not forgotten. His story is once again moving through the communities of south London. The blurb describes L Troop’s characters as ‘rambunctious dandies and enchanting thugs’ and there is something very interesting about them. Journalist Carl Hyatt wants to get to the truth, but knows that it will mean challenging Mulhall, the secret kingpin of L Troop and defender of Eldine’s killers. This will put everything and everyone he loves on the line.
This is a really unusual novel and probably one I wouldn’t have found in the course of my usual reading choices. I’m really glad I chose to give it a try. Written almost completely like a stream of consciousness, this is a novel that feels very relevant. The events feel entirely real, probably because they echo the murder of teenager Stephen Lawrence. Young, black teenager Eldine Matthews is murdered at a South London bus stop. The racist gang, L Troop, who are responsible for the killing, escape justice. Now, twenty years later, the leaders of the gang are untouchable by the law. Through years of police corruption and intimidating witnesses, they have carried on with their violence. However, even twenty years later, Eldine’s murder is not forgotten. His story is once again moving through the communities of south London. The blurb describes L Troop’s characters as ‘rambunctious dandies and enchanting thugs’ and there is something very interesting about them. Journalist Carl Hyatt wants to get to the truth, but knows that it will mean challenging Mulhall, the secret kingpin of L Troop and defender of Eldine’s killers. This will put everything and everyone he loves on the line.
I loved Nath’s depiction of London. It is edgy, vibrant and full of unusual characters​ and colour. It gave me a sense of 18th Century novels like Moll Flanders, because there’s a bawdy element to the language and a similarity in the various settings of bars, brothels and other disreputable establishments. The language of the characters is unusual too, they are unexpectedly erudite and articulate. Nath explores the issue of race, breaking it into three strands; individual, institutionalised and societal. He also tackles weighty subjects like justice, revenge, homophobia and religion, but it never feels worthy. These subjects are simply introduced through characters interacting with each other. The most compelling characters for me being Mulhall with his darkly magnetic personality and terrible hold on the community, and rent boy Donna Juan who could easily be the central character of his own book. Despite the dark subject matter there’s a strange exuberance about the novel, and it’s those contradictions, both in character and tone that kept me reading. The best thing we can say about a book is that it will stay with us and make us think. With this book Michael Nath has managed to do both.

The Treatment is set in London circa 2011, but so idiosyncratically framed it'd be easy to believe this was all taking place a few centuries ago, or at some point in the far future. The dialogue-heavy narrative – speckled with flecks of other languages, historical tidbits and obscure references – has all the uproarious colour of a street ballad; the characters, eccentric to a fault, are given to lengthy, verbose speeches that make them sound like neural nets trained on Shakespeare and Martin Amis. It's near-impossible to pin down the baggy story succinctly, but it involves a journalist named Carl Hyatt following the trail of Mulhall, a sinister kingpin.

Initially, I was interested in this because the blurb made it sound a lot like Danny Denton's brilliant The Earlie King & the Kid in Yellow. There are some similarities, and certainly Denton's book is the closest comparison I can think of, though The Treatment didn't thrill me in quite the same way. It's Earlie King with a more conventional setting; a present-day, less queer (but not exactly un-queer) Confessions of the Fox; Plume if it was spliced with a 17th-century picaresque.

It's sometimes hampered by an issue that also afflicts Joanna Kavenna's Zed: the sense of a plot-driven story trying to squeeze out from beneath a freewheeling narrative. Its digressive style is stirring, but it can also be exhausting, depending what you're in the mood for – or, indeed, what you want to get out of reading a novel in the first place. And just as with Zed, my final rating of three stars feels like an inappropriate but unavoidable compromise. I was so frustrated with some parts of it (hated almost everything about Carl's relationship with Karen) while loving others (Donna Juan is surely one of the best characters of the year).

This is totally out of my comfort zone but I loved every moment even when it was like being punched in the face.
The style of writing is amazing, I loved how the writer uses words and how tells a dark and fascinating story.
The setting and the cast of characters are amazing and I won't forget them soon.
It was a great read, highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Michael Nath's imaginative, confident, erudite and original storytelling provided me with one of the most joyous reading experiences in recent times. It's scope is extraordinary as it draws on the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence that rocked the British establishment to its core when a public enquiry excoriated the society in which such grotesque crimes took place with impunity and a police force that failed to bring the perpetrators to justice, concluding that the police were institutionally racist. In this comic, witty and tragic novel, at a bus stop in South London, black teenager Eldine Matthews is murdered by a racist gang. Decades later, L Troops brutal thugs have evaded justice, protected by Michael Mulhall, a powerful London crime boss aiming for respectability.

Disgraced journalist Carl Hyatt lost his job after 'libelling' Mulhall, now working in a career ending post at the free newspaper The Chronicle run by editor, Andy Ravage. Eldine's murder has not been forgotten and whispers reach the ears of Carl, whispers he cannot ignore as an old acquaintance re-enters his life, criminal defence lawyer Victor Hanley, and he interviews rent boy Donna Juan for a profile in the paper. Stories of the past emerge from the streets, bars and brothels of London, of police corruption, and the elimination of key witnesses, such as that of a ticket tout, whilst in the present a councillor is hit by a car, put in hospital for asking unwanted questions and a rent boy disappears. Hyatt's curiosity and professional calling plunges him into a unfamiliar but dangerous London, but he is out of his depth and lying to his wife, Karen. He becomes part of a motley crew consisting of a lawyer, his black minder, a one-eyed comic, and a geographer rent boy, all fizzing with energy, looking for revenge and a justice which the rest of society failed to secure, unfazed by the obstacles in their path as his editor publishes a front page expose on Mulhall, tipping Hyatt into an abyss of fear as danger creeps ever nearer to those close to him.

Nath's use of language is sublime, in a narrative that more often than not feels like a stream of consciousness, and his priceless depiction of London is vibrant, ribald, and colourful, peopled by a huge cast of terrific characters. The interactions between the characters is done with a style, deftness and skill that I could only admire. Woven into the heart of this edgy and gritty story is a reflection of history, philosophy, religion, literature, politics and homophobia, through its portrayal of the integral characters. Nath examines the nature of race, individual, institutional and societal, the concept of justice, and revenge in this thought provoking and profound picture of a nation and a city. I was particularly delighted in the role of the women, Fabiana and Karen in the vengeance that takes place in this irrepressible, ambitious and exuberant tragi-comic tale. Without a doubt, Michael Nath deserves to win awards for this and I cannot recommend this highly enough! Many thanks to Quercus for an ARC.

The treatment by
Michael Neth.
At a bus stop in south London, black teenager Eldine Matthews is murdered by a racist gang. Twenty years later, L Troop's top boys - models of vice, deviance and violence - are far beyond justice. There are some people the law will not touch.
But Eldine's murder is not forgotten. His story is once again on everyone's lips and the streets of south London; a story of police corruption and the elimination of witnesses. A solicitor, a rent boy, a one-eyed comedian and his minder are raising ghosts; and Carl Hyatt, disgraced reporter, thinks he knows why.
There's one man linking this crew of rambunctious dandies and enchanting thugs, and it's the man Carl promised never to challenge again: Mulhall, kingpin of London's rotten heart and defender of L Troop's racist killers. Carl must face up to the morality of retribution and the reality of violence knowing that he is the weak link in the chain; and that he has placed everyone he loves within Mulhall's reach.
A good read with likeable characters. Good story. 4*.

I just do not know where to start. I have reviewed nearly 350 books on NetGalley and this is the first one where I really do not know what to say.

It is exuberant and paints wonderful verbal pictures beautifully expressed but I honestly found it almost unreadable. A long stream of consciousness which seemed to jump from place to place and character to character.

I tried, Oh I tried. I struggled with the opening five chapters and was totally unable to describe what I had read, who was who, who was doing what to who and what exactly was happening. So I started it again and felt exactly the same. Maybe I just could not summon up the patience or even concentration but I really just could not "get" this. I can well understand why David Peace apparently loves this book as there is a similar stream of consciousness in this work as there is in his.

It just wasn't for me but maybe it is my problem and I have just damned with faint praise what might be a massive best seller.

I am going to leave this one alone now and try it again after Christmas and see if my viewpoint or ability to assimilate, comprehend and enjoy it has changed.