Category: Thriller

Amberlough by Lara Elena Donnelly

As far as fantasy novels go, this has a great setting and characters (with one exception that I’ll get to in a minute) and above all atmosphere. Essentially an alternate world take on Weimar Berlin before the fascists’ rise to power, it depicts life lived on a razor’s age, hedonism in the maw of societal …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/05/28/amberlough-by-lara-elena-donnelly/

The Hunt For Red October by Tom Clancy

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, that took forever to read. Which isn’t the reason I’ve been away from here for so long, for which I tender my apologies: work has been extra busy recently, and I only read this to keep up with Ingress Book Club. But to the book! I expected much better, tbh. I …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/07/10/the-hunt-for-red-october-by-tom-clancy/

CyberStorm by Matthew Mather

At its heart, CyberStorm is a book about how the human condition unravels under intense external pressure. Here, the external pressure is a record-breaking blizzard that strikes Manhattan as the Internet, and the many essential services it controls, fall victim to mysterious cyber attacks (which are actually very cleverly explained in the book’s denouement.) There …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/02/29/cyberstorm-by-matthew-mather/

Disclaimer by Renee Knight

About halfway through this book, I hated everyone involved (with the great exception of Catherine,) including, and this is saying something, the author. But I’m glad I gritted my teeth and got to the end, because it was well worth it. In Disclaimer, people are awful to each other because they seek to assuage their …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/11/29/disclaimer-by-renee-knight/

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

So you get to the one part in the book (and anyone who’s read it will know what I’m talking about) and you stop, stunned. And you go back and you read the last part over again. And if you’re me, and essentially a British schoolgirl at your core, like Maddy you burst into uncontrollable …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/11/06/code-name-verity-by-elizabeth-wein/

The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins

I think I would have liked this book more were it not marketed as the next Gone Girl. On its own, it’s a decent mystery novel with an excellent framing device, but I was expecting something far more diabolical and cautionary than the “don’t marry a psychopath” takeaway which, while good advice, is also fairly …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/09/01/the-girl-on-the-train-by-paula-hawkins/

In The Woods by Tana French

There was a lot I enjoyed about this book, but I had two very large problems with it, both to do with Rob Ryan. The first is fairly spoilertastic, and less to do with his character than with what I felt was a strange choice on the part of the author. Essentially, you never find …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/08/21/in-the-woods-by-tana-french/

Method 15/33 by Shannon Kirk

Product Details: Hardcover: 258 pages Reading Level: Age 18+ Publisher: Oceanview Publishing (May 5, 2015) ISBN-10: 1608091457 ISBN-13: 978-1608091454 Publisher’s Description: Imagine a helpless, pregnant 16-year-old who’s just been yanked from the serenity of her home and shoved into a dirty van. Kidnapped…Alone…Terrified. Now forget her… Picture instead a pregnant, 16-year-old, manipulative prodigy. She is …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/03/02/method-1533-by-shannon-kirk/