Like any kind of writing, literary criticism must strive to find the most precise words to communicate what it wants readers to see as it deconstructs a narrative. That’s why vague words like “special” and “unique” are frowned upon; they fail to be specific. That said, both of them apply perfectly to Richard Chizmar’s Chasing…
Peter Vronsky’s American Serial Killers is a brutal, engaging, meticulously researched account of the start, development, and conclusion of the fifty-year period knows as the “golden age” of serial killers in the United States. While the book focuses on serial killers, Vronsky digs deep into the psychology that shapes them, tracing the development of the…
There’s something about dark narratives about dysfunctional families that pulls readers in. It probably stems from a sense of empathy mixed with familiarity. However, some stories take dysfunction into places so dark and dangerous that readers aren’t pulled in; they’re brutally dragged. Abigail Dean’s Girl A belongs to this second group. A crushing tale that…
What’s Left of Me Is Yours is a gripping debut set in modern-day Tokyo and inspired by a true crime that charts a young woman’s search for the truth about her mother’s life—and her murder. Stephanie Scott’s What’s Left of Me Is Yours is an outstanding novel that occupies the interstitial space between crime and…
In the third Isaiah Coleridge novel from Laird Barron, Isaiah finds himself entangled with a rich and powerful cult while looking into a mysterious death and a shady real-estate deal worth billions. There’s a secret to creating something great and then consistently making it even better, and Laird Barron possesses that arcane knowledge. With Worse…
Brian Panowich’s Hard Cash Valley is a violent crime narrative with an undeniable sense of place and a series of unlikely protagonists that somehow coalesces into a tense, fast-paced slice of Southern grit. Dane Kirby has a decent job and a loving girlfriend, but he’s a broken man haunted by the ghosts of his dead…
Take Me Apart by Sara Sligar is a spellbinding debut novel of psychological suspense and a chilling, thought-provoking take on art, illness, and power that follows a young archivist’s obsession with her subject’s mysterious death as it threatens to destroy her fragile grasp on sanity. Sara Sligar’s Take Me Apart is a fascinating narrative that…
All it takes to unravel a life is one little secret… In Jennifer Hillier’s riveting new thriller, a woman desperately tries to save her marriage in the face of overwhelming tragedy. Jennifer Hillier is one of the best in the business. The elements that make her one of the best are clear and present in every…
K. Ferrari’s Like Flies from Afar does not feature your average protagonist. Luis Machi has a cocaine habit, an affinity for women who are not his wife, millions of dollars in the bank, and a bloody corpse in the trunk of his BMW… but as far as the body goes, he’s completely innocent. Like Flies…
William Kent Krueger’s Ordinary Grace is one of those crime novels in which crime is just one of the elements of the story. While there is murder in its pages, this book is a celebration of language, a brilliant and nostalgic study of life in small-town America in the 1960s, a look at the complex…
