| Title | : | Knox |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | ebook |
| Number of Pages | : | 360 |
| Publication | : | Published May 20, 2020 |
Knox Reviews
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Shards of glass fall like shattered stars onto the snowy cobblestone streets of Manhattan. Like all the other dreams the city swallows whole, the fragments are filthy the moment they touch the ground—splashing in the clogged gutters, burying themselves in the ruined white atop heaps of trash no one bothers to claim. If it weren’t for the man landing with a grunt and a curse, the passersby might not even take notice.
Update: The full first season is now available! Review continues below :)
Three episodes in, and I'm loving this serial. If you're not familiar with Serial Box, the basic premise is that they release episodes of various series, usually by a variety of authors, usually six to ten per season. I was offered this serial free in return for an honest review, and I'm happy to give one - I would have been buying this anyway, so the opinions you'll get are all my own.
K Arsenault Rivera, Gabino Iglesias, Bo Bolander - they're the respective authors of the episodes that have been released so far, and they've done an absolutely stellar job. The tone is consistent, the writing is exceptional, and the combination of Lovecraft meeting private detective is spot on. Morgan Knox, our titular detective is a woman who sees more than just reality, and has paid for it time and time again. But even only three episodes in, it's clear she's not one to give in and stop fighting - like all the best PIs, she's at her best up against formidable opposition, when she's working and fighting to make even the small injustices right again.
This review will updated as the season releases, though I'll review multiple episodes at once so that I'm not constantly bombarding you all with it. But so far, this is everything promised in the blurb and more.
And here we are with the full season released! Just before I get to the book itself, a quick note that Serial Box have updated their website since I read the first three episodes, and I'm loving the changes. I've been a reader of theirs for a while, and I'll usually listen to their stories, because white backgrounds on backlit screens kill my eyes after a while. But no more! The reading section is dark by default now, with white text, and the audio can be switched on and off at any point while you're reading. It's so good.
And back to the story! I'm torn, because to tell to much really would be to spoil it, but the promise of Lovecraftian Noir is absolutely lived up to. But it's not the kind of noir where everything is futile, and the moment you depend on another person you get the legs swept out from under you. Instead, when Knox leans, she's propped up by the family she's chosen; when things are at their darkest, that's when the real friends help you fight off the cultists and creatures from another dimension. This was just such a great series - horrifying, sad, but ultimately uplifting. And so, so beautifully written. The different authors do have different styles, but the consistency in message and tone wrapped it together in a way that made sense.
I could probably ramble about how much I loved this series for as long as the Goodreads word limit would let me. But I'll spare you that, and if your taste runs in this direction, I'd highly recommend you go read Knox instead. -
ARC received from the publisher (Serial Box) in exchange for an honest review.
I accepted this review request for several different reasons. First, the line-up sounded fantastic. Second, the setting – 1930s Manhattan. Awesome. Third, while I have read a few Lovecraft-inspired books, I have never read a noir before and I wanted to see if I can like one. I knew there was a high likelihood that it would be free of unexamined racism and sexism, which seems to be the issue with most noirs I heard of, and I was absolutely correct. It was great – a little too horror for my taste (which is more me being a wimp than any fault of the writing, really), but great.
(I should probably mention I went for the text version, not audio, so I can’t say anything about the narration.)
Morgan Knox is a detective who’s been suffering from horrific hallucinations (or are they?) ever since she returned from war, where she used to act as a nurse. Now working as a PI in Manhattan, she is called to solve a strange case and soon gets in way over her head. Naturally. The writing is for the most part very consistent – the only chapters with a noticeably different style are those by Brooke Bolander which read more like a fever dream, but it more or less made sense as something of an interlude and her style is gorgeous, so I didn’t mind much.
I really liked Knox. She’s the usual hard-drinking, cynical detective with a complex past and a hidden heart of gold, but there’s a reason why this trope works. She was easy to like – and so were her friends.
And the setting! The general atmosphere was very dark, and of course we mostly see the seedier side, but it still felt vibrant. I liked how they portrayed New York as diverse as it was, and is (it reflects in the cast as well – Knox is Puerto Rican, Ray is Black, Abe is Jewish…). There is racism and there is sexism, yes, it comes with the setting and it would have felt disingenuous otherwise, but none of it passes unquestioned. The horror elements I can’t say much about without going into spoilers, but it was much creepier than I initially expected.
All in all, Knox is a serial I enjoyed and would recommend. Especially if “lovecraftian noir” sounds good to you.
Enjoyment: 4/5
Execution: 4/5
Recommended to: those who want a noir without unexamined racism and sexism, fans of fantasy horror and urban fantasy, those looking for queer PoC protagonists
Not recommended to: fellow wimps, those looking for a light read
More reviews on my blog,
To Other Worlds. -
Disclaimer: I received this product for free in exchange for an honest review.
In fact, I was offered this product, and when I read the message part of me thought something like "oh gosh, I have so much I've been meaning to read and I'm really not getting to most of it. Maybe I shouldn't?" In the meantime, the rest of me had parsed "Mythos", "noir", and "partly by Bolander" and was typing back something along the lines of "Yes, please, thank you."
(To be clear: the chapters from Rivera and Iglesias and Moraine are absolutely stellar, I just didn't know as much of their work going in.)
Knox is a serialized novel set in 1930s Manhattan. Morgan Knox was a nurse in WWI and is now a PI with a knack for dealing with the weird. When the man who committed a series of murders gets shot and falls to his death in the East River, she's hired to look into who might have set him on the spree, and from there the story unfolds beautifully.
It's a beautiful blend of noir and horror. We meet Morgan Knox in an extremely dynamic introduction that makes it clear that she is one tough-as-nails bad-ass PI. I'm holding off on getting into spoilers, but I cannot overstate how much Morgan's reactions to everything she dealt with anchored the world. Both her present-day visions and the past experiences that underpin her life are horrific without being gratuitous[1], and while she keeps going in them, her doing so never feels easy or cheap. Her world-weary familiarity with horror spared me needing to sit through a protagonist who just can't believe what's going on as the case takes on more ominous tones; her battered stubbornness and principles made me want to see her succeed so badly. And while the general thrust of an ominous villain was made clear in the beginning, I genuinely was not expecting the details of the reveal, or how the arc of the antagonist progressed. It was creepy and chilling and ultimately damn delightful, for values of delightful that cover horrific entities from beyond our world.
Then there's the other characters - the people already in Knox's life and the people she runs into during the investigation (there is some overlap here). I liked reading about all of them, and even those in more antagonistic roles or who only showed up briefly were clearly drawn and distinguishable from each other. Having Knox surrounded by so many well-realized characters keeps the story from being a grim and lonely one, and really brings home how much she holds back. I deliberately took breaks between reading each chapter, and I never had any trouble slipping back into the story or remembering who people were to Knox, and judging by my own reactions at a couple of points I was really invested in them being okay.
(This is my first serial, and I wasn't sure what to expect in terms of the story being broken up that way. I will say that each episode felt well-balanced; the focus differed as the story moved along, and the ending always made me look forward to more, but I was never irritated at the stopping points, if that makes sense.)
As a final note, the story is mercifully not whitewashed or Hollywoodized. I find that when reading or watching noir, especially written-to-be-period noir, there's occasionally a tendency for the story to have a lot of white straight folks. Knox emphatically did not do that, and I was glad to see that 1930s New York had actually been portrayed as a melting pot.
Recommended for fans of the Mythos (you won't find name-checks here, but you'll find some great descriptions and lovely horrific scenes), fans of noir with a rich setting, and anyone who wants a combination of the two with a solid and satisfying character arc.
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[1] Please note that I may have a slightly high tolerance for descriptions of the effects of violence done to others, but this is a blend of Mythos and noir, and I think the descriptions work perfectly in that context. -
This starts my first serial box listening experience. Caught the first three episodes and I am intrigued. Although it starts as a classic noir PI story the lovecraft elements start promptly ( thankfully without the casual racism or misogyny) this makes tasks like mowing ir gardening zip right by!
I'll add more about the show after new episodes -
Actual Rating 3.5
Thank you Serial Box for allowing me to listen to this Audiobook in exchange for an honest review.
This book follows Morgan Knox a Puerto Rican Detective who has supernatural abilities, as she investigates a mysterious murder. This was a well paced detective novel that had surprising LGBT and racial diversity. Knox had to navigate being a woman in a male dominated profession with visions of horrible atrocities. She was a nurse who served in the war and had to struggle with the trauma that left her with.
The book was fast paced with surprising twists along the way. The background music and tone matched the time period, and the chapters had cliff hangers that made you want to continue to listen. I wanted a bit more explanation of about how the supernatural elements connected with some sc-fi elements. But still enjoyed the story. The Serial Box app allows you to listen or read the book at any point while listening. I listened to the entire book but thought this was a feature I may use in the future
This book is for readers who enjoy a historical fiction detective story with a strong female protagonist and LGBT rep. -
ARC received from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.
A fresh new lens on the hard-boiled aesthetic, with a slow burn of both intimacy and eldritch horror.
The authors have a clear understanding of the truths underlying hard-boiled detective cliches, which means that while this protagonist feels unique in the genre, she is entirely at home in it.
But they're also willing to move past those cliches and actually allow for some personal growth, which I was surprised by.
The occult mystery serviced the plot well enough for the run of the book, but some twists didn't really follow. There was also a repetitiveness to the dark imagery which came across as gratuitous at times. Connecting the nature of the occult to the period of the book came off pretty well, though.
All the romantic interests ended up feeling like real people with their own real needs. Which I think makes their personal histories with the protagonist richer.
All in all a good time, but the draw here is the personal drama rather than the mystery or the supernatural. -
So far I'm really enjoying this series! The story is intriguing and I'm liking how the details are coming in one at a time to keep me hooked. Morgan Knox is a really interesting character and I really look forward to continuing! The narration is fun and I like the classic radio drama feel.
(This review and my rating are subject to change as the story updates) -
Morgan Knox, an Afro-Latina detective in 1930s New York City, is called to look at a body--the body of a man whom she'd recently met with. The remains are bones and ashes, with a strange coating, and nothing else burned. Is this connected to the case he recently hired her for?
Quite possibly. Morgan was a field nurse during the Great War, and she came back from that experience seeing bizarre and horrifying supernatural phonomena. The more she pokes into this case, the more strange and confounding things appear. The dead man, Siverek, turns out not to be who he presented himself as. His true history is shocking. In his more recent life, he was a book collecter whose fellow collectors seem to be equally odd and suspect. The clues lead her to Craddock, a man from a previous case--who is dead.
Or is he?
The more she digs, the more she finds things that just don't seem possible--unless the things she sees are more real than she wants to believe.
In 1930s New York, being Afro-Latina is a big enough complication for her life. Being a private detective is a strange occupation for a woman, too. Add to that, she's also queer. She has friends, Abe the cab driver; Danny, her secretary; Ray, a cop and her ex-husband. Also the women who have been her lovers, including a woman doctor in the coroner's office. All of these people are strong in their own ways, like Morgan, and in their own ways just don't fit in, also like Morgan.
With flashbacks to her war years, the emergence of strange, even Lovecraftian figures, and a dangerous cult that wants Morgan for their own reasons, it's terrifying and compelling.
This is, like all Serial Box productions, a serial that was released one chapter per week, and you can listen to the audio production, or read the ebook version. I really enjoyed it, and I say that as someone who doesn't like much horror. Recommended.
I received this audio production and ebook for free from the publisher, and am reviewing it voluntarily. -
I liked this, mostly, but the fever dream chapters (the ones by Brooke Bolander?) were so different in tone and style from the rest of the narrative that I got quite restless. The noir + tentacular horror combination was very effective. I loved all the little moments when Morgan sees maggots eating people's eyes, or tentacles crawling out of their mouths, while they're just going along minding their own business, and she has to close her eyes and count to ten to make it go away. That set up the chapter Dead Reckoning extremely effectively. But somehow the reappearance of evil cult baddies was a let-down. The narrative was so engaging and the mystery so satisfying, that as things started coming to light it was disappointing. Oh, ho hum, another cult wants to end the world as we know it and let the evil ones in. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.
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Listened to the audiobook. Took a minute to get into it, but I ended up enjoying the story.
