Book of Night

Charlie the Charlatan is a retried con artist trying her best to live an honest life. She tends bar for the local dominatrix, squirrels away funds to pay for her sister’s college tuition, and desperately attempts to distance herself from her past life. However, that all changes while walking home one night when she stumbles across a gruesome murder. Curiosity gets the better of her and she quickly finds herself backsliding into old habits. From there, it’s a race against time to fit the puzzle pieces together before the con artist becomes a victim of the con.

The unexpected element of this story is that an individual’s shadow can “quicken,” allowing it to be modified, enhanced, and even removed. While the story was going for a more occult noir feel, it was hard to envision a shadow as anything other than Peter Pan’s cheeky sidekick. Overall, the story felt smothered by extra and unnecessary information. The convergence of the multiple plot lines should have built suspense but ended up coming across as rushed and cumbersome. A more focused plot line would have helped to build drama and suspense.