Lindsay Faye’s extraordinary The Gods of Gotham is the best novel of its kind since Caleb Carr’s The Alienist. This isn’t a unique observation, it’s emblazoned across the cover of the novel. However I agree with it. I love big city historical fiction so taking a serial killer thriller and setting it in New York City in 1845 is always going to draw my interest. Faye goes a step further by making the origin of the New York City Police Department, and beginning of the […]
A bit like The Shining Girls. But not awful.
Few writers are as adept as Tim Powers at telling stories about really difficult to understand concepts by making them palatable and compelling. In this novella, Powers tells the story of Richard Blanzac, a rare books dealer, who is caught in a time loop after coming in to possession of a box of writings from a long forgotten beat poet named Sadie Greenwald. Salvage & Demolition is a short book and to say any more would give away too much of the fun. I’ve been […]
A diabolical and clever thriller
I write my reviews as I read. I’m sure most do it’s the only way to really express the nuances and little things you notice as you are reading, as opposed to trying to remember when the story is over. This partly explains why I’ve been mostly absent this year; my review file was lost when I moved computers and I can barely remember what I read this year, let alone what I thought about them. I had this review nearly ready to go with […]
Sometimes the things presented to us as choices aren’t choices at all.
Few writers can gut punch readers with an ending the way Stephen King can. Written in the first person, 11/22/63 is ominous from the start. But why it is so ominous takes over 850 pages to understand. For all his flaws with endings, the final lines are usually cutting. Take another story told in first person, The Green Mile. It’s only at the end, the very end, that the true cost of the story is revealed with that haunting final line “We each owe a […]
Clear alcohol is for rich women on diets
One of my favorite shows of the last several years is Parks & Recreation. I was heartbroken when it ended last year but happy the story was able to be finished and we were able to say goodbye to characters I loved. One of the more unique things about the series was that most of the main cast saw a huge increase in their exposure and popularity. In addition to the most striking example, Chris Pratt, you also have Rashida Jones, Aziz Ansari, and Nick […]
Depression, and blackouts, and murder(?), OH MY!
If you are looking for a well written, fast moving psychological thriller in the vein of Gillian Flynn’s brilliant Gone Girl you will be entertained and satisfied with The Girl on the Train. Like Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train uses an unreliable narrator structure to keep the reader off balance, revealing information bits at a time so that your understanding of the story keeps changing. It also features characters that are largely unlikable, yet strangely compelling, and keeps you turning the pages even […]
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