It’s Monday, What Are You Reading? 10-24-22 @PerilReaders @the_bookdate

I’m all about RIP (Readers Imbibing Peril) this week! Everything on my list counts towards the RIP XVII Challenge to enjoy books that could be classified as: Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Dark Fantasy, Gothic, Horror, or Supernatural.

Currently Reading

The Third Rail by Bill Fleming and Joe Peters

The Third Rail delves into the ongoing challenge of race relations in the city of Boston. Like its predecessors, Code Black and Troubled Waters, this latest tale proves that all is not what it appears to be when the city’s most conniving power brokers try to get their way. Veteran transit police sergeant Morris Fitzgerald must step carefully in trying to identify a rogue cop while also cracking the mysterious disappearance of transportation artifacts. All the while, he must keep the simmering tensions among the city’s many factions from reaching a boiling point. — Jacket copy

Bill Fleming, the author of The Third Rail and two other novels in the Code Black series, is a retired police officer for the Metropolitan Boston Transit Authority (MBTA) subway system, known as “the T.” He draws on his years of experience and observations from the T to write the Code Black books about veteran T-cop Morris Fitzgerald, who may not always be “politically correct” but who knows right from wrong.

Recently Read

The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill

“This thrilling excursion into metafiction from Australian author Gentill (Crossing the Lines) wittily examines the writing process itself.”. — Publisher’s Weekly

I’m not much of a mystery reader, but The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill is set in Boston, Massachusetts; starts out at the Boston Public Library; and has writers as main characters; so it appealed to me for multiple reasons. Plus, the author is Australian, and I follow a lot of Australian book bloggers (including Kathryn, host of today’s It’s Monday, What Are You Reading link-up party) Also, The Woman in the Library is meta!

All this to say, I’m not sure what real mystery fans will think. For me, it was an enjoyable read – definitely dark enough for RIP month – but not entirely satisfying as a mystery (because I wasn’t surprised by the ending.)

Still, I’m probably going to look for the author’s other stand-alone metafiction book – After She Wrote Him (Poisoned Pen, 2020) – which is excerpted at the end of The Woman in the Library, while mystery readers may want to check out the author’s long-running Rowland Sinclair series, which starts with A Few Right-Thinking Men.

Currently Listening To

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

“Tamsyn Muir’s absorbing storytelling and Moira Quirk’s immersive performance create a richly imagined fantasy world…Quirk is at turns antagonistic, vulnerable, and hopelessly helpful as she characterizes all the participants and stewards of Canaan House…Winner of the AudioFile Eaprhones Award.” —AudioFile

With a review like that from AudioFile, Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir has been on my TBL list since 2019. October seemed like the perfect month to listen to a dark fantasy about an empire of necromancers at war.

One advantage to waiting this long…the rest of the Locked Tomb Trilogy is already released!

Recently Listened To

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

A dark academic debut fantasy with an established cult following that reads like The Secret History meets The Umbrella Academy. – From the Publisher

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake tackles the age-old question of what you should do after college graduation, but asks it in a world where magic skills are something you can put on your resume.

At the start of this urban fantasy, six twenty-somethings are recruited from around the world for a London-based secret society. Some are aimlessly waiting tables, some are laser-focused on mundane-world careers; some are using magic to get ahead, others are wasting their “gift,” not sure what to do with it. Chapters are narrated by different readers, depending on which character’s perspective the chapter is in.

The Atlas Six is described as a revised version of the “BookTok sensation,” but I’m not familiar with BookTok at all. I like books about groups of friends – frenemies, in this case – so that’s probably what drew me to this book. (See my Top Ten Tuesday list of favorite books with friend groupings.)

This post is linked to “It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?” hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date. Check out the link-up party there for more book lists!

Please let me know what you’re reading in the comments!