Unshapely Things by Mark Del Franco5/28/2023 ![]() Overall, the fantasy elements are very attentively realized while the crime stuff sticks to formula. We don't exactly have the femme fatale, though we do have a couple of femmes you don't want to mess with. We have the grim loner detective hero with a checkered past, we have his sympathetic cop friend, we have the serial killings that seem inconsequential prostitute murders until the involvement of powerful politicos reveals there's more than meets the eye, and we have the requisite scenes in which our hero takes a beating. ![]() Bad thing #1: this means that, for much of the book, Del Franco doesn't do much with that template other than mine it for clichés. ![]() In his debut novel, Bostonian Mark Del Franco takes an entirely straight-faced approach to the hard-boiled detective/police procedural template, keeping the snark to a minimum even when presenting us with dead fey prostitutes. Good thing #1: it's not a Jim Butcher knockoff. Here's yet another urban-fantasy/crime-thriller hybrid. ![]()
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