2020 book 46

Elizabeth Knox's Absolute Book
I read a review of this book and was like, well, I need to read THAT, and promptly ordered it from New Zealand. At first, the story feels like a traditional mystery--the protagonist's sister is murdered, but the killer is convicted of manslaughter and only serves five years, and the protagonist encourages an acquaintance to take revenge. Now it's several years later, and her best-selling book has thrust her into the limelight--and brought a detective around asking questions. And then things take a turn toward the fantastic. This book brings in all sorts of mythology/folklore/ancient religions, and so it was VERY much up my alley. Parts of it are a little slow but sort of in a meditative way, not in a dull way. The scope of this whole thing is huge and weird and wonderful. I didn't know what to expect from any of it, which is unusual and enjoyable. It does look like after that Slate piece, an American publisher did snag it, so hopefully it'll be here before too long. A.