This appears to be one of those modern thriller/mystery novels with handsful of unreliable narrators and constant unfurling revelations in the back quarter. I am at best ambivalent about that structure--at some point further revelatory twists just feel ... cheap--but this novel is written reasonably competently, and Ms. McHugh does seem to have some insight into her characters. I've read at least one other novel recently where a detective with a baby on the way was investigating a crime against a child, I dunno if that's coincidence or something once clever that's drifting haplessly toward trope. This is a novel that feels grimier than anything by Joy or Cosby or Burke, mainly because the characters aren't fighting against such structural forces, they've mostly done this damage to themselves and each other.
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Dead Man Switch by Matthew Quirk
It feels as though I'm in one helluva losing streak, but I think it's just the writers I'm trying out for the first time/s that...

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Reading this novel reminded me a good deal of reading Processed Cheese . America Fantastica is more subtle, and the points it's makin...
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A neat little Horror novel (big shock on the genre, there, I'm sure) that plays some interesting games with PTSD and identity, with ma...
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This is early Vachss, all taut and violent, more than a little murky to my mind. It is not good to be a sexual offender in a Vachss novel....
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