Nov 13 2020
I’m still thinking about this cleverly constructed fable set fifteen or so years in the future. Thirty year-old Malachi is hired to essentially be the groom for a stable of murderers whose bodies are being used as part of a top-secret organ-growing project run by Raizier Pharmaceuticals. The nutrients fed to the prisoners cause their …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/13/the-book-of-malachi-by-t-c-farren/
Nov 10 2020
Y’aaaaall. I’ve read plenty of books with unsympathetic narrators but this is one of the perishing few where I could sympathize with our protagonist even as I lacked any empathy for her. Grace Wright is, in temperament, my exact opposite. She has a fixed idea of how things should be, and reacts poorly when things …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/10/she-lies-close-by-sharon-doering/
Oct 28 2020
One of my greatest joys as a book critic is finding little known indie/self-published debut novels and championing them for the world to read (see: James Roberts‘ Pardon Me, or anything by Unsung Stories but particularly Rym Kechacha’s Dark River.) As such, I’m always open to queries and will rarely turn anything down, schedule permitting. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/10/28/the-tech-by-mark-ravine/
Oct 08 2020
Q. Every book has its own story about how it came to be conceived and written as it did. How did She Lies Close evolve? The inspiration for She Lies Close came from my family’s move to a new neighborhood years ago and finding out that a guy down the street was being prosecuted for …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/10/08/an-interview-with-sharon-doering-author-of-she-lies-close/
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/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire