Macbeth

Part of the Hogarth Shakespeare series, which commissions contemporary novelists to retell Shakespeare's plays, this novel transposes Macbeth into a decaying, rain-soaked industrial port town plagued by unemployment, corruption, and crime. For 25 years the town was misruled by Chief Commissioner Kenneth, whose death has brought a reformist outsider, Duncan, to lead the police force. Two drug operations dominate the town: the Norse Riders biker gang, led by Sweno, and the mysterious Hecate, known as the Invisible Hand, who manufactures a synthetic drug called brew.

Inspector Duff, the ambitious head of the Narcotics Unit, leads a stakeout to intercept a Norse Riders drug shipment at the harbor, deliberately excluding other units to claim sole credit. The operation unravels when Sweno takes a young officer hostage at saber-point. Macbeth, the head of SWAT, has positioned himself on a nearby rooftop with his deputy Banquo, a white-haired veteran who is like a father to him. Macbeth improvises a rescue, then he and Duff disguise themselves in stolen Norse Rider gear and raid the gang's clubhouse, subduing most of the members, though Sweno escapes. During the pursuit, Duff shoots a surrendering Norse Rider he mistakes for Sweno, and Macbeth cuts the throat of a witness to protect Duff. They agree on a false story, binding them in mutual silence.

Duff exposes Inspector Cawdor, the head of the Gang Unit, as a mole for the Norse Riders. Cawdor hangs himself before arrest. Duncan creates the Organized Crime Unit and, to Duff's bitter disappointment, appoints Macbeth to lead it. Outside police headquarters, three strange emissaries sent by Hecate, led by a towering figure called Strega, congratulate Macbeth on his new appointment and prophesy that he will become chief commissioner. They also tell Banquo that his son Fleance will one day hold the same office.

Macbeth returns to Inverness Casino, home to his partner Lady, the casino's owner. When Macbeth tells her about the prophecy, Lady urges him to kill Duncan, arguing that only as chief commissioner can he transform the town. Macbeth resists, but Lady manipulates him by questioning his courage and revealing she once killed her own infant to fulfill a promise to herself. Duncan accepts Lady's invitation to celebrate Macbeth's promotion at the Inverness. Lady drugs the bodyguards' drinks, and Macbeth obtains brew from Strega, relapsing into drug use after years of sobriety. High on the drug, he enters Duncan's room but cannot strike a sleeping man. Duncan wakes and accepts Macbeth's excuse. As Macbeth turns to leave, he catches a reflection in the doorknob of Duncan pulling a gun from under his pillow and reacts on instinct, throwing his dagger into Duncan's neck.

Lady confirms the murder and stages the crime scene. When Duff discovers the body, Macbeth shoots both drugged bodyguards, claiming they resisted arrest. Macbeth confesses to Banquo and asks him to kill Deputy Chief Commissioner Malcolm so Macbeth can assume power. Banquo agrees because Macbeth promises to elevate Fleance as his eventual successor, but Banquo cannot bring himself to commit murder. He threatens Malcolm into signing a false suicide note, puts him on a plane to Capitol, the country's capital, and stages a drowning. Macbeth reads the forged letter at a press conference, delivering a speech, coached by Lady, vowing to continue Duncan's mission.

Macbeth grows paranoid that Banquo will betray him to advance Fleance's claim to power. He commissions the Norse Riders to assassinate both in exchange for the release of imprisoned gang members. The Norse Riders ambush Banquo's car, but Banquo senses the trap. Shot and bleeding, he cuts Fleance's seatbelt and kicks his son off Kenneth Bridge into the river before driving on until his fuel runs out. Banquo is killed and later beheaded. That evening, Macbeth hallucinates Banquo sitting at the dinner table, bloodied, and screams before the guests.

Macbeth appoints Seyton, a lean and unsettling officer, as head of SWAT and his personal bodyguard, and escalates his drug use with a stronger substance called power, supplied by Hecate. Hecate reveals that Lennox, the head of Anti-Corruption, has been his informant for over a decade, and orders Macbeth to kill Duff, who has deduced from forensic evidence that the bodyguards were framed for Duncan's murder. Macbeth orders SWAT to massacre the Norse Riders' clubhouse using Gatling guns, then sends them to Duff's home, where they kill Duff's wife Meredith and their two children. Duff escapes only because he is at the flat of Caithness, a fellow officer. At a press conference, Macbeth frames Duff as a corrupt collaborator.

Duff escapes the town disguised as a galley hand aboard a cargo ship. In Banquo's glove compartment he finds an address in Capitol, where he discovers Malcolm alive, along with Fleance, who survived because Banquo had taught him to swim. Malcolm tests Duff's integrity by feigning corruption; when Duff refuses to compromise, Malcolm reveals the test was a ruse. They form an alliance to overthrow Macbeth and recruit Caithness to their cause.

Lady's mental state deteriorates: she sleepwalks, compulsively scrubs her hands, and becomes fixated on the dead infant from the clubhouse massacre. Angus, a young SWAT officer, tries to expose Macbeth's crimes, but Lennox, paralyzed by divided loyalties, does nothing. Macbeth orders Lennox to kill Angus as a loyalty test, and Lennox complies. Macbeth attempts to bomb Hecate at the Obelisk penthouse, but Hecate has been forewarned. Lady injects herself with a lethal overdose and dies. Macbeth discovers her body and feels only emptiness.

Lennox, who was shot and permanently paralyzed while shielding Mayor Tourtell from an assassination attempt ordered by Macbeth, gives a radio confession to reporter Walt Kite exposing Macbeth's crimes. Macbeth kidnaps Tourtell's son Kasi and demands that Tourtell declare a state of emergency, which under the town's laws would grant the chief commissioner dictatorial power. Tourtell refuses on the radio, sacrificing his son rather than submit to tyranny. When Seyton moves to execute Kasi, Macbeth stops him, unable to kill a defenseless child, and throws his dagger into Seyton's chest.

Malcolm, Duff, Caithness, and a volunteer force of police, firefighters, and civilians assault the Inverness. An armored-car attack is destroyed by the Gatling guns. Fleance proposes using a fire engine ladder to reach the roof, but Macbeth anticipates the move and shoots him. Duff leads a final charge: volunteers smash Bertha, a century-old locomotive displayed at the station entrance, from her plinth. The engine rolls across the square and crashes through the Inverness wall. The falling chandelier's gilt spire impales Macbeth's shoulder, pinning him to the floor.

Duff confronts the pinned Macbeth. When Macbeth invokes Hecate's prophecy that no man born of woman can harm him, Duff reveals he was cut from his dying mother's womb during Sweno's attack on a police station, the scar across his face a relic of that violence. Macbeth goads Duff into killing him by reaching into his jacket as if for a weapon. Duff thrusts a saber through Macbeth's chest, only to find that Macbeth held nothing. Macbeth had manipulated Duff into granting him the death he wanted.

Afterward, Lennox detonates a grenade in Hecate's secret drug kitchen beneath the central station, destroying the brew operation. A one-eyed boy whom Hecate once forced to cut out his own eye finds Hecate mortally wounded and refuses him mercy. An epilogue set years later shows the town transformed under Chief Commissioner Malcolm, with falling crime rates and the Inverness converted into a public library. However, a final scene reveals Sweno alive, returned from exile, standing on Gallows Hill with Jack Bonus, Hecate's surviving informant who had posed as the Inverness Casino receptionist. Bonus has located a surviving brew recipe, and Sweno vows to reclaim the town, suggesting the cycle of corruption may begin again.