Sep 21 2020
It’s starting to get cold here in Maryland, so time for my thoughts to turn to hot soups and snuggling under the covers with a creepy tale or two! First up, an American classic that isn’t, perhaps, as overtly scary as its reputation has made it out to be, tho many literary people have certainly …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/09/21/we-have-always-lived-in-the-castle-by-shirley-jackson/
Jul 02 2020
This novel ends on a cliffhanger and I desperately want to know what happens next! Catfishing On CatNet, despite the unwieldy title and weirdly muddy cover, is a cute, deft YA sci-fi thriller set in a near future where CatNet is a sort of social connection site whose members are broken out into groups called …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/07/02/catfishing-on-catnet-catnet-1-by-naomi-kritzer/
Apr 05 2020
That was both fun and surprisingly heartfelt! Sunshine Vicram has just returned to the New Mexico town of Del Sol where she grew up, after being elected sheriff in a race she wasn’t even aware she’d entered. Her parents, Curtis and Elaine Freyr, were convinced she’d be the best person for the job and “managed” …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/04/05/a-bad-day-for-sunshine-sunshine-vicram-1-by-darynda-jones/
Mar 09 2020
Imagine if the manor house mystery shenanigans of Knives Out were being investigated by a female police detective with a recent history of job-related trauma. That’s what reading and thoroughly enjoying Tessa Wegert’s debut novel, Death In The Family, felt like to me, as we join Detective Shana Merchant in looking into the case of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/03/09/death-in-the-family-shana-merchant-1-by-tessa-wegert/
Feb 08 2020
All that Cedar Valley Police Detective Gemma Monroe wants to do is enjoy her infant daughter’s first Halloween, but a trick-or-treating stop at an old friend’s place of business soon brings work back to the fore. Retired judge Caleb Montgomery has been receiving threatening letters for five months now but has only just decided to …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/02/08/shatter-the-night-detective-gemma-monroe-4-by-emily-littlejohn/
Dec 29 2019
I read a lot of mystery novels, by happy coincidence of them being a) one of my favorite types of books and b) the primary subject of the website I work for. As such, you’d think I’d have read any of Lee Child’s bestselling Jack Reacher books already. A phenomenon pretty much since they were …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/12/29/killing-floor-jack-reacher-1-by-lee-child/
Nov 18 2019
I love it when the second book in a series is better than its predecessor. And make no mistake, this is not a standalone novel, despite the odd lack of signalling otherwise. You’d be doing yourself a disservice if you didn’t start with Nick Setchfield’s The War In The Dark, which sets the scene for …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/11/18/the-spider-dance-by-nick-setchfield/
Nov 05 2019
When San Francisco homicide detective Valerie Hart is called to her latest crime scene, a deadly assault in an upscale neighborhood, she isn’t prepared for the victim’s identity, or for the emotional turmoil it brings to her newly reconstructed life. Having put her days of robotic alcoholic promiscuity behind her, she’s reconciled with her husband, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/11/05/anything-for-you-valerie-hart-3-by-saul-black/
Aug 20 2019
Oh gosh, this was one of those deeply affecting cautionary tales that you finish and need to put down and just sort of sit and recover from for a while. Set in a near-future where the trajectory of global (but especially American) capitalism has come to its merciless inevitability, the largest employer in the country …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/08/20/the-warehouse-by-rob-hart/
Jul 23 2019
In near-future London, Charlie Aaron volunteers for a drug trial to help make ends meet. Nothing seems to happen, but several months later, she develops a crippling narcolepsy that sees her fired from her desk job, unable to make the anonymous ASMR videos that are her side gig, and thus evicted from the cupboard under …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/07/23/sweet-dreams-by-tricia-sullivan/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire