Broken Monsters – Lauren Beukes, 2014

Broken Monsters initially seems to be a gritty but familiar cop-vs.-disturbed-serial-killer tale.  Which would be a good read in itself. But readers are quickly thrown off-guard when the familiarity of that genre is yanked away and things take a supernatural turn.

The setting is perfect.  Detroit: blasted, crumbling, stricken, yet persevering.  This real wasteland is juxtaposed with the shiny, removed world of social media and the idea that maybe, art and writing can transcend this reality.  But in a good way?

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