Dear Manafonistas,
Whenever I’m reading a truly fantastic crime novel, there’s a certain calm that comes over me. It’s the feeling of knowing that you’re in the hands of a genuinely gifted storyteller who knows exactly where he or she is leading you. Brookmyre writes with the kind of precision and richness that inspires this feeling for me. BLACK WIDOW is an assured thriller in every possible sense. This might not be a book that readers will binge-read, but that’s no flaw of the novel.
BLACK WIDOW is complex and layered, featuring alternate narrators and timelines—and, to make things even more complex, the chapter headings don’t tell you right off the bat which narrator you’re reading next. Despite all these moving parts, I felt completely at ease with this story’s layers—Brookmyre masterfully leads the reader down rabbit holes and through a maze to the truth at the core of this book. Don’t misunderstand: BLACK WIDOW is wholly engaging and moves at a pace that’s comparable to its psychological thriller peers, it’s simply not a book I found myself wanting to binge-read; I took my time with this read, savoring each page and letting myself get lost in its dark maze—and the payoff for this journey was absolutely worth it. The book will be published by Rowohlt Taschenbuchverlag on April 16.
Kindest regards, Emily