The Shining Girls
Lauren Beukes. Little, Brown/Mulholland, $25.99 (368p) ISBN 978-0-316-21685-2
South African author Beukes, winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Zoo City, adds an intriguing wrinkle to the serial killer suspense novel. In the creepy opening chapter, set in 1974, sadist Harper Curtis, who’s on the prowl for one of his “shining girls” (“bright young women burning with potential”), approaches six-year-old Kirby Mazrachi, as she plays alone. After an initially friendly exchange turns nasty, Harper promises that he will see Kirby when she’s grown up. In 1989, he keeps that promise by savagely attacking her. Miraculously, Mazrachi survives and leverages an internship with a Chicago newspaper into a private investigation of her assailant who can travel through time. The shifting perspectives require readers to stay alert, but those who do will be rewarded. Beukes is particularly good at garnering sympathy for Harper’s female victims, creating deep characterizations in only a few pages, so that they come across as more than just fodder for a psychopath’s mission. 5-city author tour. (June)
Details
Reviewed on: 04/01/2013
Genre: Fiction
Compact Disc - 9 pages - 978-1-4789-5215-2
Hardcover - 480 pages - 978-0-316-24521-0
Open Ebook - 368 pages - 978-0-316-21684-5
Open Ebook - 244 pages - 978-0-316-24897-6
Open Ebook - 400 pages - 978-1-74309-666-6
Paperback - 400 pages - 978-0-316-21686-9
Paperback - 416 pages - 978-0-00-746457-9
Paperback - 402 pages - 978-0-7322-9580-6
Pre-Recorded Audio Player - 978-1-4789-5088-2