After reading the back-cover copy of Allyson Roy’s BABYDOLL, I knew the novel could go one of two ways: an over-the-top ride or a truly glorious train wreck. I’m happy to report it’s the first, with enough humor to put a smile on any seasoned crime fan’s face. I mean, there is only so much depressing noir one can take before you need a change of pace.
This is the second book in the Saylor Oz series from this husband-and-wife writing team. Saylor is a sex therapist by trade, but thinks of herself as some ad hoc detective trying to help out her roommate, Benita, whose photographer brother has been arrested and jailed for the murder of three models he worked with, and the big-time lawyer they hired pretty much quits on them.
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Fearful of becoming extinct, publishing increasingly has turned to interactive novels, of which LEVEL 26: DARK ORIGINS is the latest. Written by CSI creator Anthony E. Zuiker with Duane Swierczynski, the book proclaims itself to be the world’s first “digi-novel” — not the first interactive novel, obviously, but the first to go by that marketing-ready moniker.
Whatever it’s called, LEVEL 26′s interactivity branches beyond mere gimmick. Its 20 online “cyberbridges” serve as transition between chapters, and they’re expertly filmed and edited, becoming a vital part of the book’s overall experience. The jacket says these are optional, and while that’s true to an extent, you’d be doing yourself a disservice to skip them. Imagine watching a movie and once every 15 minutes or so, you walk out to the lobby; that’s what it’d be like.
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