The very near future is a great place to set crime fiction – it presents a world we recognise, but is darkly skewed.
In John Marrs’ ‘the One’, dating apps have been rendered superfluous by a simple DNA test guaranteeing the perfect match. Naturally, they’re not the only thing to have been upended.
The story follows a handful of unconnected individuals, including one particularly unsavoury reprobate, as their matches expose the deadly flaws in the plan.
Marrs draws us into this brave not-so-new world before piling on the shocks and surprises. The protagonists are perhaps a little sketchily drawn, but this hardly matters given the frenetic pace.