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Here in the Dark

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Here in the Dark

By: Alexis Soloski
Narrated by: Laura Benanti
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Bloomsbury presents Here in the Dark by Alexis Soloski, read by Laura Benanti.

'Impressive' Financial Times
'Terrific' Guardian
'Elegant' Laura Shepperson

By night, Vivian Parry performs the role of Manhattan's sharpest literary critic, immersing herself fully in every show she sees. By day, she uses work, sex and psychotropic drugs to keep her comfortably numb.

Desperate for a promotion and at the urging of her editor, she agrees to an interview with David Adler, an enigmatic graduate student. When he later disappears, Vivian soon learns from his devastated fiancée that she was the last person to have seen him alive. The police refuse to investigate his disappearance and Vivian finds herself obsessed with what happened, assuming the role of amateur investigator.

But as she gets closer to the truth about David Adler, she finds that the boundaries between theatre and reality are more tenuous than even she could have believed.©2023 Alexis Soloski Amateur Sleuths Detective International Mystery & Crime Mystery Psychological Thriller & Suspense Women Sleuths Women's Fiction Fiction Crime Suspense
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Critic reviews

Alexis Soloski portrays Manhattan's thespian scene and high-end social life in vivid detail with snappy dialogue. This is an impressive debut
A sharp, funny and pacy slice of Manhattan noir that manages to be over-the-top and weirdly plausible, with a terrific payoff
Alexis Soloski’s debut – a sharp, captivating thriller about a cynical theater critic who gets pulled into an investigation of a stranger’s disappearance – is a suspenseful page-turner filled with complex characters. ... Good luck not finishing it in one sitting
Best book I’ve read this year… the most interesting, funny and outrageous voice I have read in so long (Taffy Brodesser-Akner, author of Fleishmann is in Trouble)
Soloski smoothly transfers her masterful journalistic writing to this novel, creating a classic yet entirely modern noir. Fast-paced, funny, sexy, and witty, Here in the Dark is a satisfying read to the very last word
Alexis Soloski's debut novel is an elegant, chilling read that examines the lives of critics, actors, and addicts. It poses the question: can you know or even have your own identity, when your entire life is spent acting? Recommended for lovers of New York and the theatre, this is a taut, beautifully written psychological thriller that dares to delve into the darkness behind the curtains (Laura Shepperson)
A moody, taut dose of noir, Here in the Dark is a poised, daring debut - the kind of novel I relish and can't get out of my head, evoking the work of icons like Megan Abbott and Margaret Millar in its hypnotic prose and mesmerizing characters. Readers will not forget Vivian Parry - and they won't want to (Alex Segura, bestselling author of Secret Identity)
Soloski does not disappoint in either her sharp-eyed and unflinching portrait of an unravelling critic, or in her delicious upending of genre. Hitchcock meets a slippery metatheatrics of power, performance, desire, and escape. This is a novel and a protagonist who moves with a precarious velocity, constantly choosing the most dangerous move and bringing us careening after (Jen Silverman, author of We Play Ourselves)
Here in the Dark lives up to its title and is indeed a dark tale; it’s also hilarious, addictive, elegantly constructed, and composed. It’s ultimately a book about art and the love of art, but it's cleverly disguised as a thrill ride, a jolt of pulp and a shot of noir. It became a New York classic to me the minute I read the last sentence (Michael Imperioli, actor, writer, and musician)
All stars
Most relevant
What is theatre? What happens when acting spills into ‘real life’ or are we all playing roles all the time? Some unpleasant scenes about drug and emotional abuse but great plot twist. Superbly narrated.

Dark and complex

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It was something so different to my normal crime fiction reading - such an interesting idea and it was so witty with references to a background in theatre - loved it

A witty clever novel very much of our time

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