Tom - that sucks! Ask for a refund. Amazon are - apparently - quite good at issuing them where there's good cause.
Finished Parable of the Forgotten. It's one of those books that stays with you for a while after reading. That's not an incredibly good thing at times - I don't need extra inspiration for swearing!
But it's a good read. I haven't read anything like it, although Trainspotting comes closest in style, I think. Subject matter - not for the faint of heart, as I already said, and it does take you on a pretty wild spin.
The narrator is Jarvis, a user of an impressive number of different drugs. He's just got off alcohol after a suicide attempt and psych ward visit after his brother's death. He wants to know who killed his brother. Then he finds his friend Lady - a transvestite sex worker - in the Botanic Gardens, dead. So now he's looking to solve
two murders, getting advice from a number of voices in his head (including his dead brother's). Except he starts seeing a bigger picture, where it looks like the same person might have killed both of them, for the same reason... and then framed Jarvis.
Gets 5 stars from me. And a shudder or two.