After years of struggling in the Chicago theater scene, ambitious actress Kira finally lands the role of a lifetime. But starring in Temper means working with Malcolm Mercer, a mercurial director who’s known for pushing his performers past their limits—onstage and off—and Joanna, who sees Kira as a threat to be neutralized.
Temper is one hell of a ride. Fargo’s writing is direct and crisp, and her characters mesmerize. She keeps the story moving and the intrigue high with fresh twists on those classic thriller genre crowd-pleasers: sex, violence, and deception. Readers won’t find better in the debut thriller category this summer.
Fargo maintains a scalpel-like control over her characters, even when they themselves are out of control ... Ultimately, Temper the novel doesn’t leave enough on the page. For all of Malcolm’s magnetism...we leave him as we found him. He is an enigma, a dark ghostly presence whose inner life Fargo doesn’t seem to have any more of a grasp on than the rest of us ... you can’t help wondering how much deeper, revealing—and, with its mystery element, more suspenseful—Temper would be had Fargo divided its first person narration between Kira and Malcolm instead of Kira and the passive, not-so-interesting Joanna ... It’s a testament to Fargo’s ability to evoke the fiercest reality while engaging in equally revealing flights of personal truth that the [theater] critic stuff stands out.
Temper is a twisted tale of what happens when violence, ambition, and the taste for blood take center stage ... the story ominously intensifies ... Temper...builds a sense of danger and suspense that will keep readers guessing, literally until the last page. Fargo’s first novel features complicated female characters and will be well received by fans of Gillian Flynn and Tana French.
