Headcase is the fourth book in the Timothy Blake series by award-winning Australian author, Jack Heath, and follows on some three months after the events of Hideout, which left our favourite cannibal half a limb poorer, rejected by the love of his life, and coming to terms with the death of a heretofore-unknown son.

Now, Blake is outlining, at the request of the psychiatrist treating him in the Behavioural Health Unit of the George Clark Red Memorial Hospital, just what happened two weeks earlier to see him admitted there. He begins with the astronaut, but occasionally has to digress when Dr Renée Diaz requires clarification on some point.

His CIA handler, Zara (whom readers may recall from Hideout) had sent Blake to check out the report of a dead astronaut in a Mars simulation field at Johnson Space Centre. Blake can’t help noticing details: the man is in a worn Chinese astronaut suit, visibly bruised and in a strange position. Did he fall from an undetected Chinese Space Station? A researcher from the Centre tells him this is impossible. And there’s a large footprint nearby...

Before Blake finally figures out this mystery, the who, how, where and why take quite a few turns. On the journey to the answer, Blake visits a CIA black-ops morgue, a children’s ward, spends an unpleasant episode in a hypobaric chamber, is beaten up, tasered, suspected of being the latest serial killer (The Reaper), gets to use a nail-gun, and spends time mooning over (and stalking) Reese Thistle. He does get to eat a bit of his favourite food, but he spends a lot of time hungry.

Blake’s inner monologue and his unsaid asides are often laugh-out-loud (if darkly) comical. He assesses everyone he meets: “He was in his forties, bald, Black. Thin legs and arms, but with a gut straining the buttons of his business shirt. I imagined his liver would be rich and buttery. Nutritious, too” and “A thought popped into my head, the same one that appears any time I’m in an elevator with another person: ‘If we get stick between floors, how long should I wait before I suggest we draw straws?’”

Once again, Heath gives the reader an engrossing (although some might say gross) read. There are so many twists in this cleverly constructed plot that it would be wise to prebook a chiropractic appointment before starting. There’s a dramatic climax, and a killer last line. As with past books in the series, Heath prefaces each chapter with a riddle, a clue to which appears in that chapter. Again, there are spoilers for the previous book(s) so it is important to read this series in order. Every bit/e of this is hilarious and hugely entertaining.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by Allen & Unwin.