Pitch Dark
Time moves in circles in Pitch Dark, just like Ennis is moving in circles in her own mind. And there are no clear conclusions and no ending. This book is a journey.
Diversity
Most old books are written by rich, straight, white men. These books were written by people who were not. Authors from a visible minority and women writing outside of ‘acceptably feminine’ topics can be found here.
Hope Against Hope
It is essentially Nadezhda’s account of her own suffering and her country’s under the murderous, oppressive force of a dictator’s relentless purges of all opposition. Of art and culture. Of intellectuals and anyone who got in his way or was inconvenient.
The Cipher
The Cipher is an interesting story that uses extreme violence to help the narrative. It doesn’t become the narrative.
Siblings
Elisabeth is supposedly fully invested in the GDR and stubbornly sees it as the way to some kind of utopian realization of equality for all. However, her doubts have started to creep in.
Murder in the Age of Enlightenment
Though the subjects are varied, what remains is Akutagawa’s beautiful starkness and his precise use of prose. There is the feeling that cutting one word would be impossible, but adding one would be a shame.
Rope
Patrick Hamilton’s Rope is a subtle kind of spooky. It’s not a murder-mystery. The murder has happened and it is no mystery who did it.
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Dark academia has become a much-talked-about off-shoot of the spookier genres, and I would say that label fits Picnic at Hanging Rock.
Women Crime Writers
Even the whitest of picket fences can hide a twisting darkness. And that very pressure could itself serve as one of the most complex themes of noir — that of dreams deferred and decisions made with extreme regret.
Crime Novels: Thrillers from the 1960s Part 2
As the 1960s began to fade into the 1970s, noir took a fascinating and complex turn. It wasn’t enough to just be about a crime — now it was about being relevant to the current moment.
Crime Novels: Thrillers from the 1960s Part 1
Readers begin to ask the question — what happens when your job is crime? What happens when people decide to make money ‘the easy way’?