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After her husband's suicide (or was it???), single mom Vanessa Castro gets a new job as deputy chief of police in a small town completely dominated by an amusement park, Wonderland. The night before her first day at work, 1) she has a random one-night stand with a guy who turns out to be in Wonderland management, which causes complications when 2) a mutilated corpse appears beneath the Ferris wheel, 3) a Wonderland employee vanishes after posting a photo of himself free-climbing the Ferris wheel. Happy first day on the job!
I found this book via a "female horror authors of color" book list, but it's actually a basic detective suspense novel, not horror. I think I'd have been more into it if the horror aspects had been played up. Or maybe not.
The best part of the book is the incongruously cheery Wonderland employee memos. Otherwise, it's trashy and batshit, but not quite batshit enough to be really memorable. Also, waaaaay too much random abusive/predatory/ill-advised sex for my taste. I could have done without the only gay characters being child abusers or the messed-up adult victims of child abusers.
I finished the book and I'm still not sure if the heroine murdered her husband or assisted in his suicide, or whether there was more than one serial killer, or exactly why multiple boys were locked in a dungeon below the Clown Museum for literally years, other than that locking people up for years is a known thing that psychopaths do. But in a novel, one expects more specificity.
I found this book via a "female horror authors of color" book list, but it's actually a basic detective suspense novel, not horror. I think I'd have been more into it if the horror aspects had been played up. Or maybe not.
The best part of the book is the incongruously cheery Wonderland employee memos. Otherwise, it's trashy and batshit, but not quite batshit enough to be really memorable. Also, waaaaay too much random abusive/predatory/ill-advised sex for my taste. I could have done without the only gay characters being child abusers or the messed-up adult victims of child abusers.
I finished the book and I'm still not sure if the heroine murdered her husband or assisted in his suicide, or whether there was more than one serial killer, or exactly why multiple boys were locked in a dungeon below the Clown Museum for literally years, other than that locking people up for years is a known thing that psychopaths do. But in a novel, one expects more specificity.
