When I first heard about A Lovely Way To Burn, I wasn't sure I would enjoy it. I really liked The Girl on the Stairs, and I've heard a lot of praise for Louise Welsh's other novels from various sources I respect - my apprehension was more to do with the fact that a dystopian crime thriller that's the first of a series (this is the start of a trilogy titled Plague Times) didn't really sound like my sort of thing. More fool me, then, because this was one of the most exciting, original books of the year so far.I mentioned above that this is a dystopian tale, but you won't immediately identify it as fantasy - it's set in what initially appears to be a very normal version of present-day London. The book's unlikely heroine is Stevie Flint, a former journalist turned presenter on a trashy TV shopping channel. Stevie prefers the gritty reality of journalism, but her good looks and ease in front of the camera have helped to make the presenting job an easy, and lucrative, option. This also helps to explain why she's dating Simon Sharkey, a somewhat flashy doctor with a taste for the more extravagant things in life. That is, until Simon fails to turn up for their latest date. Stevie writes off his no-show as a coward's way of finishing their relationship, but can't help paying one last visit to his flat on the pretext of picking up some of her belongings. There, she makes a discovery that changes everything: Simon is dead. Stevie is traumatised by this shock, but has little time to dwell on it before she succumbs to a terrible, feverish illness. Holed up in her flat for days, she barely survives, and when she does recover, the world outside is much changed. The virus - nicknamed 'the sweats' by the public and the media - has swept the city, causing so many deaths that it seems miraculous for Stevie to have survived without medical help. Then she's given a letter Simon wrote her before his death, in which he instructs her to deliver a hidden laptop to one of his colleagues - and makes it clear nobody but this particular man can be trusted. The stage is set for the two major threads of the plot: the widespread devastation wreaked by the pandemic, and Stevie's pursuit of her suspicion that Simon was murdered. As London falls into disarray, Stevie is increasingly isolated - the police are in a state of chaos and disinterested in the circumstances of Simon's demise; as the strapline on the cover says, 'it doesn't look like murder in a city full of death'. (For the purposes of this novel, London is the world: we never hear about whether the rest of the country is suffering as badly as the capital, or whether the sweats has spread outside the UK. Perhaps these are questions that will be answered in later installments of the trilogy.)An argument could be made that A Lovely Way To Burn is a feminist novel - although I have a feeling Stevie herself wouldn't like being called a feminist. She is the protagonist and leads the story and the action, but she is also the only female character who survives longer than a few pages. Once the sweats really hit, all the characters who successfully manage to avoid the virus are men. Stevie constantly comes up against male characters who treat her with suspicion and contempt, whether they're leering at her, dismissing her as weak, or putting on frightening displays of their superior physical strength. She makes a number of alliances throughout the novel, but these - and by 'these', I mean both the alliances and the people - never last long: ultimately, it is very clear that Stevie is on her own and can't trust anyone else to protect her. Her femininity is both her most valuable asset and her biggest liability; in the end she rejects it, mindful of the need to disguise herself and become invisible. She also appears to be the only person in London to have had the sweats and lived - a fact that's tantalisingly dangled in front of the reader a number of times without the narrative properly exploring it, perhaps another hint of things to come in the remainder of the trilogy.If I had one criticism, it would be that Stevie's commitment to her quest for the truth sometimes seems a bit too convenient. Her relationship with Simon wasn't serious (her recollections frequently make it obvious that it was mainly about sex), so is it really believable that she would keep chasing answers through life-threatening danger, rather than choosing to place herself out of harm's way? It helps here to remember that she's an ex-journalist: I find it more plausible that she'd be determined to tie up the loose ends of an unfinished story, as opposed to avenging a guy who, despite their involvement, she didn't really know very well at all.The vivid, often surreal quality of the writing here has the feel of a TV series or film - it's so easy to envision on screen, it'll surely be adapted quickly. It's like 28 Days Later meets Black Swan (I can see that quote on the posters already...) Welsh's atmospheric depiction of Berlin was a major strength of The Girl on the Stairs, and her London is similarly lucid - vibrant and repulsive in equal measures (though the latter quality increases somewhat as the story progresses). A Lovely Way To Burn is suitably fast-paced, action-packed and tense, and while there is a conventional thriller-type storyline to give the book wider appeal and hold the attention of even the most casual reader, it's full of strange, intriguing undercurrents. Although this is the start of a series, it's wrapped up properly at the end and doesn't feel unsatisfying; yet there are still enough points of interest to make the second installment a very exciting prospect indeed. Edited to add my favourite scenes:- The scene with Rachel in the dressing room, a nightmarish melodramatic sequence straight out of a psychological horror movie- When Stevie tries to take the laptop to Reah and is made to do the blood tests. Nail-bitingly tense and surreal and awful- The confrontation with Melvin and Django in the pub- When Stevie goes back to Simon's apartment - the fluttering curtain...!