Maxmom, I agree, The Devil in the White City is not fiction. It is what is what I call "historical fiction". Though based on history (and a lot of it for sure) there are obviously things in the storyline that are unknown to the author, especially in the serial killer's private life. What makes this story a little less like a true historical fiction is the fact that all of the main characters were real, not created in the author's mind, but I still see it as historical fiction. Regardless, the story was fascinating. Jodi-

Back in the 70's when I was young and, in the words of Moms Mabley, "just as cute as I wanted to be," I had a dress that suited me right down to the ground...it was a narrow winter white cotton sheath with a mandarin collar and a long, wide sash, and it was covered in big black Asian calligraphic characters. I wore it and wore it, until one day I was standing in the will-call line at the theatre, feeling fabulous, and a Chinese family walked by, did a quick double-take, and burst out laughing. I will never know what my dress said, but I didn't wear it again outside my house!

I read #1, forced myself to the finish #2, & opted to just ask my friend how it all turned out in #3. I've never read a Harlequin book so maybe this is customary.... but the part I find disconcerting about the 50's books is this: If Christian Grey were of mediocre looks, poor to average income, we would label him as a pervert & a stalker, a man with huge control issues (not just in the sexual realm), misogynistic, very jealous, & deeply scarred emotionally. The story line jumped the shark for me when he got away with really invading her privacy & stalking behaviors. We would tell our dtrs, grand-dtrs, sisters, nieces to RUN from a man like this. But .... NO.... this man is drop dead gorgeous & has a BAZILLION $$$$$'s. Therefore, anything can be overlooked. I know the story line is a flight of fancy, but I'm not sure that culturally, we don't also buy into this type of excusing the behavior because of looks/money. How could an educated, smart woman, a virgin, who was so very unaware of her own physical beauty, seemingly with near zero sex drive prior to meeting/doing Christian zip right to nymphomania & buy into dangerous sex games with basically a stranger ... all in the blink of an eye? The implausibility of the story line was a turn off to me... even aside from the multi-orgasmic repetitiousness of ALLLLLL that sex...... No, I don't get the fascination with the "50's"...

Woodnymph, although I realize what Mangan was trying to do with her psychological thriller, Tangerine, I feel she was only partially successful. Like you, I enjoyed the setting and descriptions of Tangier especially. The part in Bennington, Vermont was not as interesting to me, but I suppose it was necessary to set up the dynamics of the relationship between Alice and Lucy and to a lesser extent the relationships of the women with John, Alice's husband. However, I think the characterizations were not well defined beyond Alice is weak and Lucy is bad; John seems barely drawn, in my opinion. That's the reason it is hard for readers (I'm one) to distinguish the women characters in the every-other chapter narration, which btw has become trite (it appears so often in today's novels that I'm tempted to impose a self-ban of reading any story told in that style). I've noticed in the past five years -- maybe as much as a decade -- crops of newer writers are trying to resurrect some of the older genres. Nothing wrong with that, because many of the old stories are fascinatingly atmospheric. Unfortunately, many of these writers don't have the skill to recapture the old style -- or even update it well. One example -- and Mangan is guilty, I think: Writers use opacity as a substitute for subtlety because they simply haven't worked out how to be subtle. Mangan's pastiche of Highsmith (I definitely see this influence) and maybe Tartt bear comparison. I don't know Gillian Flynn for anything but her Gone Girl which I didn't like, so I can't say about Flynn's and Mangan's styles being similar. As for a reviewer saying Mangan is a "literary descendant of Daphne du Maurier" - Ha! I've heard and read that as a lure for hopeful readers for going on sixty years now, and my mother says that particular come-on has been used since the 1930s. Hype is lazy, sometimes, and Mangan's Tangerine is as overhyped as any new thriller is nowadays.