Violet “West” Shelley, a self-described “low-brow” crime journalist, has unwillingly spent her life in the spotlight, as the only daughter of a legendary poet and feminist icon who died tragically young. Now as West approaches fifty, she retreats to her desolate Colorado hometown to finish a long-overdue book. But what begins as a bid for solitude quickly spirals into something far more sinister.
Walker packs quite a bit of feminist commentary into the novel, along with pure, unadulterated adrenaline ... Sometimes these topics crowd out the central mystery. But as a psychological portrait and an occasion for literary sleuthing, Furious Violet is outrageously entertaining.
beautifully written, packed with humor and superbly plotted—the sort of spine-tingler you might not want to read late at night, especially if alone ... Overflows with unexpected twists, turns and delights, and readers may well clamor to hear more from this newfangled gumshoe.
With this brilliantly bonkers, fast-paced social critique of, well, everything from feminist literary theory to true crime, with jabs at diet culture and academia sprinkled in, Walker (The Cherry Robbers; Dietland) once again proves that she’s among a select few authors who have brought Margaret Atwood’s complex edge into the 21st century ... The perfect next read for those who found the wildness of Miranda July’s All Fours compelling, along with fans of Mona Awad’s “Bunny” horror novels.
