Genre: Mystery Thriller

A strong opening chapter followed by a lot of slow plodding around sleepy Wakarusa, Indiana, I had my doubts about All Good People Here being able to close things out and salvage itself after a very lackluster first half. Fortunately I thought it did just that once Ashley Flowers’ background in True Crime podcasting pick up in the last third of the book and lends itself to a successful and at times exciting resolution. My biggest gripe with All Good People Here lies with the main protagonist leads and the perspectives of Margot Davies in the present 2019 and Krissy Jacobs in the past beginning with her childhood and the sequence of unfortunate events in 1994. For me personally it felt like the two women were in constant competition of who was more insufferable to read about and who would make the unintelligent emotion-driven decision at any given moment (which is quite counterintuitive for a supposedly successful journalist). I realize this is to show character development and growth; for Margot it’s to show growing validation for her initially off-base preconceived assumptions on the case and for Krissy, to show a young adult trapped and spiraling in a life she never…

Not sure if it’s because I’ve watched endless true crime documentaries, procedural dramas like Criminal Minds and Mindhunter, or I just have high standards for the murder mystery genre, but A Flicker in the Dark did not catch or hold my attention. I felt like I was coasting while reading the first 1/3 of the book and the overall reading experience went downhill the farther I progressed through the story. Most of my negative impression can be chalked up to Chloe Davis’s personality and trauma attributed to her upbringing and exposure to the media/local community associated with her Dad’s arrest. I liked the concept of her backstory and how it affected her mindset, career choices, and paranoia, however the execution felt clunky and off-putting. I hate to stereotype novels into specific demographics, but the Chloe’s monologue skewed so heavily toward a female audience I felt like I was being beaten over the head repeatedly for 100 pages about how dangerous and unfair life can be for an independent woman. Her character’s personality and background as a psychologist with a phd also constantly conflicted with the choices she makes and thoughts she has. The book makes an attempt to highlight anxiety…

Note: The following original review for this book is old and does not meet current review standards. A fully rewritten review is planned. For a book titled the Plotters, I found the plot of this one ironically to be one of the weakest aspects of the novel that left me disappointed. I love the character dialogue and the protagonist Reseng is quite the relatable anti-hero who was cast into and doesn’t know what life is like outside the dark world of assassins. This is very much a book where the journey is deemed more important than the destination as The Plotters sets up a fascinating scene and takes a good stab at the world of political corruption, underhanded deals, and what money can buy (pun intended). Reseng gets tangled up with a plot to overthrow the status quo of the hitman industry but the book never resolves the plotlines it sets up. He goes through a period of self-reflection and discovery as things go from bad to worse and ends with a moment of grandeur for Reseng similar to the climax of a movie where an epilogue would normally kick in showing the aftermath of the events. Except there isn’t one…