Category: Thriller

Last Night (The Searchers #2) by Karen Ellis

This starts out as a stunningly impressive display of teenage emotion, bringing together three kids — Crisp, the biracial overachiever; Glynnie, the privileged white wild child, and JJ, the street kid doing whatever it takes to survive — on a night of reckless camaraderie that turns into a really bad time when adult criminals get …

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A Map of the Dark (The Searchers #1) by Karen Ellis

Insofar as flawed protagonists go, this was a surprisingly satisfying novel. At “only” 290 pages, it isn’t a dense novel, which works in its favor, honestly, as it keeps the plot moving. I can’t help but compare and prefer it to Tana French’s mystifyingly overrated Dublin Murder Squad series. Sure Ms French has moments of …

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Social Creature by Tara Isabella Burton

Shamefully, I have never read The Talented Mr Ripley, electing instead to read the Wiki page to see how much symmetry there is between that classic and this novel that does not pretend not to be very much inspired by that earlier book (in my defense, there are only so many hours in the day, …

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In A Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

I kinda don’t remember why I placed this on my library hold list, but I finally got around to reading it and, hmm. It’s very readable. I tore through the last half really quickly, almost compulsively: it’s written in such a way that I just had to keep going to find out whodunnit. Unfortunately, it …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/11/01/in-a-dark-dark-wood-by-ruth-ware/

Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll

This book first came to my attention when work was doing coverage of the Edgars the year it was nominated for Best First Novel, but I deliberately chose another book on the slate because the blurb was equal parts attractive and repulsive to me. It sounded very much like rich white people problems, plus every …

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From Page To Screen: A Simple Favor

I likened reading Darcey Bell’s A Simple Favor to enjoying a bananas smoothie of noir tropes and modern mom issues, and will extend that simile to say that I wasn’t sure how much I liked the aftertaste, but was pleased to have read it ahead of seeing the movie starring Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively and …

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A Simple Favor by Darcey Bell

Y’all, that was bananas. Imagine every noir trope/betrayal/plot twist thrown into a blender and served up with a healthy dose of modern mom issues, and you have this completely insane book that I read essentially overnight when I should have been sleeping. Granted, I was trying to crush the book ahead of going to see …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/09/22/a-simple-favor-by-darcey-bell/

Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough

About 60% of the way through this book, I thought, “Wtf, this isn’t going to be about what I think it is, is it?” and then it fucking was. And while I was okay with the events that led to the book garnering its own #WTFThatEnding, I was legitimately pissed with how the book has …

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Talon of Scorpio (Shadowstorm #3) by G.T. Almasi

I love love love Alix Nico and her hilariously idiosyncratic voice and the crazy alternate universe she lives in (well, I love the rampant violence less, but it’s a nice reminder that our own world could always be worse, so.) She’s witty and damaged and reckless and loyal, and she’s a great person to hang …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/07/30/talon-of-scorpio-shadowstorm-3-by-g-t-almasi/

An Interview With Nick Setchfield, author of The War In The Dark

Q: I was dead impressed by your idea to fuse the Cold War spy and occult horror genres, a concept I had yet to come across before reading your book. How did The War In The Dark evolve? A: As I discovered I’m actually following in the footsteps of a few people – Tim Powers, …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/07/25/an-interview-with-nick-setchfield-author-of-the-war-in-the-dark/