This psychological thriller was great entertainment for me. The tale effectively mashes a police procedural with a science fiction dystopia, the latter of which emerges slowly on the reader’s consciousness.

For the most part we are in the zone where the detective hero seeks to solve a set of vicious murders that appear gang-related. But we get a taste of some kind of larger conspiracy at the beginning along with our protagonist. San Francisco police detective Carver and his partner Jenner come across a weird homicide scene where the body has in a short time taken on the appearance of gray moss (“Like a carpet of it spread across a rot-shrunken log”). Soon thereafter, the FBI takes over the scene, and the detectives are whisked off to some kind of decontamination procedure. We part synchrony with our hero when he wakes up with no memory of the night and under the care of his very reclusive apartment neighbor, Mia. It was a bit frustrating to experience Carver slowly work toward what we already think we know, obviously some kind of cover up of nefarious government secrets. But the truth is stranger than simple imagination can render, and each small step of progress kept me turning the pages.

At first I was in the same boat with him over whether to trust Mia, who seems too kind and savvy to be believed, yet was glad he takes the chance to collude with her. Because paranoia runs deep and wide when shadowy forces erase your memory, Carver, Mia, and Jenner have to be especially creative to work the case in secret. The setting of San Francisco makes a satisfying playground for a variety of subtle gambits, violent scenarios, tense close-calls, and tragic losses of other allies along the way. The small pieces of the puzzle begin to add up to some sort of fiendish scheme by powerful figures in business and government, but how high does it go and what is its purpose?

This story draws upon some of the same fascination we get from other heroes struggling to survive against faceless enemies while handicapped from memory problems. Think of movies such as Jason Bourne, Memento, or even Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Certainly the book is not up to the genius of P.K. Dick’s chilling dystopias and paranoid mind-benders, but the skills in Moore’s delivery show some strengths. For example, I appreciate his clever way of slowly revealing the elements of the dystopia at play in this near-future world. Urban decay we can take in stride, but here we get an exaggerated state of large areas of the city being left to deteriorate and become a haven for squatters and looters. A huge underclass lives in abject poverty, many getting by from scavenging electrical cables or pipes. Meanwhile, the rich flaunt their luxurious lifestyles and maintain security with the best tech and muscle their money can buy, which includes a major role of the police force. While all this seems only a moderate extension from where we are now, Moore deftly slips in small clues about more profound differences at work in this society. For example, early in the book when Carver is checking his mailbox he is beset by a memory with short-term projections from today’s tech combined with some mystifying elements:

"He remembered standing here shoulder to shoulder with his neighbors, each of them looking through the day’s offerings: stacks of postcard-sized disposable screens, images lighting up and soft music playing at the touch of human fingers. Gemstones and real silk. Scotch whiskey casked one hundred years ago. A subscription service that could send cuts of meat … Tap the screen to your wallet and enter your PIN code, and …any of it could come to your bedroom window by drone. More than once, he’d looked up to see trembling hands beside him. Tears on his neighbor’s cheek; his own vision hot and blurred."

In so many ways this book plays on the sense of the world being a dystopia already. In the war between the haves and have-nots, it is not hard to believe the former would go to great lengths to maintain their status. Thus, while the McGuffin at the end may be silly to many, the fight of our heroes here is a pleasurable fantasy to stand in place of the helpless feeling many of us experience in the face of ominous changes in our social reality wrought by new technologies and certain of our leaders (guess who).

This book was provided by the published for review through the Netgalley program.

Having never heard of this author before I was intrigued to read the synapsis. The comparison to Blake Crouch was incredibly enticing and did not disappoint! This story was a lot of fun, totally unpredictable, and kept me guessing. I really enjoyed the twists, the characters were real and well created without being at all bothersome from the propulsion of the story and the problems that kept coming up were so clever and unexpected! I heartily agree that fans of Blake Crouch will find similar enjoyment reading The Night Market, as it has a wonderful creepy, suspenseful, and unpredictable quality that makes for excellent reading. Now I'm off to read more from this author!

Ross Carver was a cop and he just got a call to go to a murder site. It all started with a lady calling who said her neighbor was screaming a dreadful scream. Ross got to the address and the lady came out and said she had never heard anything like it and the guy had been naked and bloody and beating on the glass window of an upstairs bedroom. The cops got a light on the upstairs window and it was blood. Jenner was Ross’s partner. Ross did go to the upstairs bedroom of a luxury apartment home that didn’t
seem quite right and in the upstairs bedroom was a dead man covered in a suspicious substance. As Ross and Jenner secure the scene a team of men come in and they are in hazard gear. Then Ross and his partner were taken to a decontamination unit. When Ross awoke he had no memory pass Wednesday and it was Sunday. Ross’s neighbor Mia was by his side reading to him. Mia said a group of men brought Ross in and said he had been poisoned and the men looked like cops. As Ross tries to retrieve the lost time and memory he realizes the conspiracy runs deep.
I really loved this book. The writing was great and I loved the plot as well as the pace. There was chills, a superstitious substance, a group of men in hazard gear, conspiracy, memory control, intrigue, coverup. Mystery, intensity, danger, tech companies, brutal police surveillance, suspense, cops, murder. A little romance and so much more in this book. The ending had a twist I loved also. I love dthat Ross were determined to find out the truth. This grabs your attention in the beginning and doesn’t let go until the end. I advise you to read the other two books in this trilogy first as it will pull everything together. I also really liked how the author describes San Francisco. I loved how Ross went about uncovering the missing time. I loved the characters and the ins and outs of this book and I highly recommend.

THE NIGHT MARKET
Jonathan Moore
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN 978-0-544-67189-8
Hardcover
Thriller
A reader will occasionally encounter a book that shifts their perception of reality. I’m not talking about a novel or essay that causes them to change their mind about an issue or at the least undermines their certainty with a respect to a particular position. I’m speaking, rather, of a work that turns their world upside down. I’m talking in this particular case about THE NIGHT MARKET by Jonathan Moore, which is as upsetting and revealing a book as you are liable to read in this or any year.
I’m not engaging in hyperbole here. THE NIGHT MARKET is the final installment of a trilogy of very loosely connected novels set in San Francisco. The first two of these were THE POISON ARTIST and THE DARK ROOM, books which hold pride of place on my shelf and bear rereading whether time permits or not. As good as they are, THE NIGHT MARKET is a quantum leap beyond them, a tale that transcends genre boundaries and which is by turns a cautionary tale and --- get ready --- a cautionary explanation that explains some of the more irrational behavior that is occurring around us.
The third person narrator of THE NIGHT MARKET follows the point of view of SFPD Inspector Ross Carver, who on a fateful night responds to a report of a fatality in one of San Francisco’s luxury residences. Only moments after he arrives at the horrific scene, however, the FBI arrives, removes him from the premises, and forces him into a contamination trailer, where he loses consciousness. He awakens in his apartment to find that his neighbor across the hall --- a beautiful woman who he has never met and has only appreciated from afar --- is caring for him. Carver also discovers that he has no memory of what occurred. All that he knows is what he feels, and he feels as if something is way off. Moore thus creates a fascinating scenario, one in which the reader knows more about the protagonist than he himself knows. Carver painstakingly investigates what happened to him, and while he does so the reader learns in increments that the setting of THE NIGHT MARKET is San Francisco in a (somewhat) foreseeable and dystopian future. Moore does not tell but shows, in a number of subtle ways --- the prevalence of electric vehicles, weather changes, and a new method of advertising --- and one near the end which not only thinly ties THE NIGHT MARKET in with its predecessors but also measures how far in the future the book is actually set. The real reason for reading THE NIGHT MARKET, however, is the enigmatic Mia, who knows far more than she is telling and reveals what she knows in a piecemeal manner. Her ultimate revelation, however, is beyond chilling. It explains what occurs in the story’s present, as well as our own. It does not, however, explain everything. That information is left for the book’s conclusion, which Moore somehow makes both horrific and bittersweet. It’s the best example of the man’s incredible talent in THE NIGHT MARKET, though far from the only one.
I while reading THE NIGHT MARKET was reminded by turns of Dashiell Hammett and Philip K. Dick, but the tone and the prose belong entirely to Moore. Mystery and thriller readers will find much to love here, but fans of science fiction should embrace this incredible work totally as well. Look for THE NIGHT MARKET to be shortlisted for awards across a number of different genres next year. Very strongly recommended.
© Copyright 2018, The Book Report, Inc. All rights reserved.

The Night Market is the third in Jonathan Moore’s San Francisco trilogy. The first, The Poison Artist was a novel with the atmosphere of a 1930’s Hollywood film noir. Dark and suspenseful, it is richly atmospheric and the writing seductively draws you in to the tale. The second, The Dark Room, was a a dark tale of murder, privilege and unspeakable cruelty, told in rich and compelling prose.

Now the last part of the trilogy is a similarly dark, and this time, dystopian tale. The Night Market is a crime thriller, set in the not too distant future and lays out a plausible and very chilling future where our wants and desires are not just fuelled by advertising but positively driven by it.

The three books are loosely connected and it doesn’t matter which order you read them in. Each has a distinctive style and each a different look at San Francisco.

I grabbed this book from Netgalley as soon as I saw it because Jonathan Moore’s writing is so noir it positively oozes black treacle. His San Francisco is redolent with atmosphere, has beautiful prose and cleverly weaves a plot that will take you places you simply did not expect to go. But when you get there, boy are you glad you did!

Ross Carver and his partner Jenner attend a murder scene in one of the city’s few remaining luxury homes. The dead body is like nothing they have ever seen before. It is covered in a slimy grey substance that seems to be eating the body from within. Before they have a chance to investigate the FBI turns up clad in biohazard suits and they are ordered out of the building and into a mobile decontamination unit. Carver wakes up three days later at home in bed with no memory of at all of that night’s events. Mia, a neighbour, is sitting reading to him and has been caring for him. Mia is an elusive figure who seldom goes out and has no technology in her apartment, but she does appear to have Ross’s welfare at heart.

As Carver attempts to piece together the events of that Thursday night he will draw his partner, his neighbour Mia and others into the heart of a deadly conspiracy that impacts on the lives of everyone in San Francisco and beyond.

Moore’s tale is a savage one where the divide between the rich and poor is more stark than at any time. Copper wiring is stripped from street lights by scavengers hoping to make a few dollars and leading to the streets becoming even more dangerous. Fights break out in designer boutiques over transient luxury goods.

The Night Market is a tale about consumerism gone wild; about how technology can be harnessed for disturbing purposes and how, if we are not careful, our addiction to our devices will soon have our devices driving our desires. This dystopian future is not today, but it could so easily be tomorrow and that’s what makes it so frightening.

For Carver, the archetypal homicide detective, this is a world he doesn’t quite recognise, but will quickly have to find out about as even his own police force is being controlled by those who would control not just the city but the country.

The Night Market is a fabulous addition to the triptych and Jonathan Moore’s writing is so good and so vibrant that you feel as if you have had a bath in warm chocolate after you have read it.

I thoroughly recommend each of these books, though I think, in the end, the Night Market may be my favourite.

It was interesting yet hard to follow. I'll reread it soon to see if i could make sense of it.

The Night Market is the third in Jonathan Moore’s triptych of dark tales set in San Francisco. The first, The Poison Artist was psychological gothic horror. The second, The Dark Room, was a more down the line police procedural with decidedly creepy undertones. After the more straight forward narrative of The Dark Room it was interesting to consider where Moore would take this series. And he does not disappoint. The Night Market is something else again, a vaguely dystopian science fiction crime thriller, set in a recognisable day after tomorrow San Francisco. Once again there is a police investigation at the centre of the tale. But in this story, nothing is quite what it seems.

Homicide investigators Ross Carver and his partner are called a murder scene in a wealthy area of San Francisco. The dead body is like nothing they have ever seen but before they have a chance to investigate the FBI turns up and they are hustled from the building and roughly disinfected. Carver wakes up three days later with no memory of the events. His neighbour has been caring for him and despite little previous contact, offers to help him find out what happened during those missing hours.

To say much more about the plot would spoil some of the twists. But as with his previous novels, those twists come thick and fast and continually force the reader to reevaluate everything that has come before. But Moore also has a message in this tale. This is also a story about rampant consumerism, about our modern addiction to our devices. As with The Dark Room, there are deep, institutional forces at work seeking to maintain a status quo that benefits the rich and powerful.

Once again, Moore captures the spirit and darkness of San Francisco, the fog rolling in off the bay, and the steep divide between the haves and have nots. But in this future world, everything is heightened. The bad neighbourhoods have become worse as scavengers rip copper wiring out of the street lights. But these areas are being let go by the city so they can be torn down and redeveloped. The police force is becoming an increasingly thin blue line as the city seems to teeter on the edge of anarchy.

This series of books has been deliberately written to be, as Moore describes them, a triptych. They are only very loosely connected and there is no need to read them in any particular order. Each has a very different style and a different take on San Francisco. The Poison Artist is still the most effective of the three but The Night Market definitely matches it in the creepiness stakes and all three books are worth diving into.

The Night Market by Jonathan Moore is a futuristic dystopian thriller with just the right amount of romance added into the mix for those who like a little bit of spark in their books. It kept me turning pages, eager to know what happens next as the plot barrelled on.

I didn't realise this book was the third part of a series of standalones with each book set in the same world yet following different storylines. This in no way affected my reading experience, everything was introduced exceedingly well and in such great detail that I could probably have painted a picture of each scene!

The story starts when detective Ross Carver and his partner Jenner get a phone call late one Thursday night and are called to the scene of a crime so bizarre that neither of them have seen anything like it before. A man is found dead in his bedroom, covered in a substance that is eating its way through his skin. The neighbours say they witnessed him, naked and screaming, desperately beating against the bedroom window as though to escape.
Before the detectives can get a closer look, the FBI burst in, suited in Hazmats with guns pointed their way, demanding that they evacuate the house immediately. They are ushered into an emergency decontamination unit outside with no explanations and are forced to take a strange liquid that quickly renders them unconscious.
They each wake up back in their own homes, three days later, with no memory what-so-ever of the whole ordeal. We then follow them as they try to piece together their fragmented memories and untangle themselves from the web of lies that has been spun around them.

The plot was fast-paced and filled to the brim with action. It was a thrilling ride from beginning to end, and I would highly recommend both the author and this book to those interested in stories that engage the mind and make you question everything that you think you know. Heart-racing, filled with plenty twists-and-turns and simply phenomenal. 4 very well-deserved stars.

I received this ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

In a near-future society where mindless shopping—the desire for “more”—motivates humanity, darkness threatens to take over. Most people don’t even notice something is wrong—nor do they care. They just want more stuff. Homicide detective Ross Carver notices. Sometimes. When he’s not too busy trying to solve the unrelenting crimes that threaten the streets.

One Thursday evening, he visits a crime scene where the victim is covered in a strange substance that’s eating his skin. When FBI agents surround Ross, he’s hustled to a decontamination trailer, hosed down, and forced to drink a strange liquid that gives him seizures. He wakes up in his own bed three days later, with no memory of what happened. And he doesn’t know why his neighbor, Mia, whom he’s never spoken to, is sitting by his bed, reading.

Ross sets out to find out what’s going on. The bits he uncovers convince him that something terrible is going on in America, something that is being covered up by people in high places. He doesn’t know how Mia’s involved, but something tells him to keep her close—that she knows far more than she’s letting on.

I didn’t realize The Night Market was part of a larger world of stories, so the worldbuilding really threw me for a loop. It was like the present-day world, except slightly skewed. Skewed in a terrifying, I-don’t-want-to-live-on-this-planet-anymore way. Society has taken consumerism far beyond today’s ridiculous levels. The snapshots of marketing stunts and the feeding frenzy that ensues was horrifying to me—and believable.

Ross unknowing walks into a mess far beyond anything he’s every considered, and it takes every ounce of instinct and skill to keep himself alive. This is a dark book, and I really had no idea what was going on until the end. And even then, I’m still not sure.

(Galley provided by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)

I received an advanced copy of The Night Market from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review...

3.5 stars

The Night Market was a decently fun read. It was easily entertaining enough to finish in one day. The plot moved along nicely. I didn't feel as if it was a slow to start to the novel, the reveals weren't too dragged out, it was all executed rather nicely. Moore hooks you from the get by basically throwing you into the action. From there, you are thrown into the unknown like Ross (our narrator) and taken on a wild ride full of conspiracies, science gone wrong and much more.

While I did enjoy the story to an extent, I had a few issues. First, this just may be me, but I had a bit of hard time following along at times. This was more so in the beginning of the novel, it did work itself out. But for example, there was one scene in particular, Ross was in his house but having a flashback memory of sorts. The memory/flashback was so long I actually forgot the current setting. When he transitioned back to the now, I had to gather my confusion and realize the jump from the past to present.

Another pretty big let down was the chase chapter, I believe it was Chapter 16. For quite a few pages, we had been left in the dark on who to trust just like Ross. So when we finally figure out some shady workings from one of our intriguing characters, a huge chase chapter breaks out. And it was a huge and utter let down of a scene. Chase scenes are full of energy and anxiety, they should be thrilling and fun. However, I felt pretty let down and found the chapter almost boring. You should never describe any chase scene as boring, I don't give a cold winters tits if it is in a book, movie, or live action news. Those scenes are never a bore, but this one kind of was. I did enjoy the tidbit with Ross and the public altercation. In the grand scheme of things, it was a nice touch. But overall, it was a major let down. Now I know others may beg to differ and it is their book given right. But it just didn't do for me what it could have.

Overall, I think this book is going to captivate and dazzle the right audience. I think my skewed understanding of the genre may have not helped my rating. But I can't deny it is a pretty entertaining read. The last bit of the novel was greatly satisfying especially in a sci-fi sense. Give it a shot, I think many will love and praise this story.

Well this book was a little different, in a good way I hasten to add. Set in the near future and including some really rather interesting and a little scary technology, we follow Inspector Ross Carver as he attends a rather disturbing incident with his partner, Jenner. which he has been called to following reports from two other members of the police. Here we are privy to more information than him as his investigations are interrupted by those who wish certain circumstances to remain hidden. A few days later, Ross awakens and is confused at what he can't remember. Luckily, neighbour Mia is on hand to try and explain things and then, along with others, assists him to try to get to the truth of what happened. But who exactly is Mia and what are her real motivations for wanting to help Ross. Quite simply, is she friend or foe? More importantly, what really did happen that night and what part does it play in the bigger picture?
The plot for this book was deliciously convoluted and, along with the characters, even with the addition information that had not been wiped from my memory, I spent the majority of the book in a bit of a daze as I also tried to work out what the heck was going on! There were several "aha" moments to be had along the way, culminating in a rather satisfying, if a little scary conclusion. Made all the more frightening as the majority came across as completely credible. Be warned though, you really need to be on your toes throughout as all the clues are there, just some are not as obvious as others.
Along with the compelling plot comes a world that is dark and rather claustrophobic in places. With criminals and police going hand in hand, crossing lines aplenty, we have a setting that, at times is rather desperate and intrusive and almost poetically portrayed in places.
The characters were also interesting. With so many secrets and lies and a big slice of duplicitous behaviour they certainly kept me on my toes throughout as I tried to work out whether friend or foe or just out for themself. Ross himself is especially intriguing as there is something beneath the surface that obviously motivates him. So much so that he has to make some very interesting decisions along the way. He definitely piqued my interest as a character and I connected to him right from the off.
I understand that this book forms part of a set of interconnected books all set in the same world. A world that I did quite enjoy visiting here in this volume. One that I would really rather like to return to. Luckily for me the other two books are already waiting for me. Just need a slice of time to fit them in.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

The Night Market by Jonathan Moore is a novel that starts like many traditional murder-mysteries where a cop and his partner are called upon to investigate a dead body, but what follows is a dark, genre-bending story that continually ratchets up the tension.

The Night Market is the third novel by Moore to be set in the shared San Francisco first created in The Poison Artist and continued in The Dark Room. The three novels share a few characters and are similar in tone, but the best thing about the set is that they are completely unique in plot and style. The Poison Artist is a hallucinatory journey through a San Francisco that feels like a gothic oil painting where you have to constantly question what’s real. The Dark Room is probably what could be considered the most typical crime novel, but again San Francisco feels like it’s wrapped in a dark cloud this time do to rampant corruption. The Night Market follows these novels up with Moore’s darkest representation of San Francisco yet.

The novel is set around a half-century in the future and large swaths of San Francisco have been left to rot. Many neighborhoods have been claimed under eminent domain with promises of future construction, but in the meantime copper thieves have stripped every house and left huge areas in the dark. In the still inhabited parts of the city consumerism has run rampant with people smashing up shops just to get the latest thing advertised regardless of what it is. This is very much a sci-fi novel and like most good sci-fi it offers a critique of our current society by showing what our world could possibly become. In this novel there is clearly something wrong with the world, but no one seems to care.

The Night Market utilizes a riveting central mystery as a vehicle to illustrate the horrors of a society ruled by coporatism and commercialism, where a brand is more important than friends or family. This novel definitely succeeds as a page-turner, but where it sometimes falters is when exploring the bigger ideas it seems the author wanted to investigate. The novel at times can feel a bit unfocused and some of the more interesting ideas like brand cults, don’t feel as fleshed out as they could be and were possibly cut down to help the pacing.

Overall The Night Market by Jonathan Moore is an interesting mystery that presents some ideas that may make you feel a bit pessimistic about our society.

The question with this book is...is this a police detective/murder mystery or is it a sci-fi futuristic thriller? Once I stopped trying to pigeon-hole it into a specific genre and just went with the flow, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The San Francisco homicide detectives, Carver and Jenner, are just classic: smart, curmudgeonly, loyal, and wily. Their sidekick in uncovering a vast plot of mind control is a complex young woman who lives across the hall from Carver, who nurses him back to health after a fairly creepy crime scene that he is incapable of remembering. As the two detectives race down a rabbit hole of weirdness, the other characters that get involved to try and solve this crime are intriguing and compelling. Yes, one does have to suspend a bit of disbelief, but when you cannot stop turning pages, who cares? I loved this roller coaster ride of a book.

Try as I might I just couldn't connect to this book, I thought at first it would be ok but as it went on I couldn't get on with it.It was too slow and just couldn't connect to the main characters. so sorry hate to give a bad review but I have to be honest.

A nightmare in a dystopian version of San Francisco is the best way that I can describe the plot of this book. Excellently written and atmospheric, you can almost hear the persistent rain and feel the fog on your skin. They say that it's a similar style to China Miéville. I've only read one of his books but I can see the similarities. It also brought to mind Blade Runner. Dark, rainy and populated with hard-boiled characters. After investigating a horrific crime scene, Detective Carver and his partner are taken in by men in hazmat suits, decontaminated and eventually wake up having forgotten everything. They figure out something is wrong and start trying to reconstruct the incident. Like a futuristic Sam Spade, Carver prowls San Francisco meeting shady characters. Carver knows that he shouldn't trust his neighbor, Mia, but he can't help opening up to her. So... this is a very classic noir with a science-fiction bend and an awesome, unexpected twist that made me gasp. That said, I found it too cerebral for my taste and I couldn't really enjoy it (just like I didn’t quite like Miéville). This is not the novel’s fault but simply a matter of personal preference, it is extremely well-crafted and many, smarter readers will love it.

This dystopian future novel starts out strong, with Detective Ross Carver heading out though a blighted San Francisco night to a luxurious home. A neighbor reported seeing a man in the house, naked, and frantically banging on the window, trying to escape . . . something. When the detectives arrive, the man is clearly dead, and horribly so. When folks in hazmat suits show up, and hustle Carver and his partner from the scene, we sit on the edge of our seat to find out what is going on.

Then Carver wakes up in his own apartment, with no firm memories of the past few days. His neighbor tells him she has been caring for him while he was sick, and that some strange people dropped him off at home a week earlier without ceremony. Carver, noticing more and more inconsistencies about his missing time, is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery.

This all seems very promising, but in the end I wound up being disappointed. Part of it was my fault, I didn't realize when I started that this was the third book of a series, and so diving in with this book was more than a little confusing. Characters and events are referenced in passing and without having read the previous books, there is no reference for what is going on.

But also, while I love a good dystopian novel, I found the pacing of this book to be incredibly slow. Pages and pages go by, but nothing seems to happen. Perhaps I'm being overly impatient, or my view of the pacing was exacerbated by not reading the first two books, but in the end this book simply wasn't for me.

I do love a thriller that hits the ground running from its first paragraph.

But... though this never got slow, I felt like it went wonky. They throw a lot of different stuff after you right after the opening scene, and I wasn't sure with what to do with all of it until the last 40 or so pages. I'm still not sure how to organize it all in my brain.

However I was expecting the mystery to shake out, it certainly had nothing to do with consumerism. I think it would've landed better for me (though been more obvious I guess) if there had been more descriptions of the behavior of non-main characters before the end of the book. Sure, there are looters, but there are always looters in apocalyptic novels. The silk wrapped hotel and Venetian fiend masks gave me more of an Eyes Wide Shut vibe, but this wound up being a totally different type of bacchanal. The kind that apparently involves nanorobots.

Was the idea for everyone on the planet to get sick? Did that lab develop them for companies to help sell products and then a strain got out of control? It mentioned them taking over your brain and it turning to soup (or something to that effect), but how long until that happens? Does it kill you then, or are you just crazed like that woman going through trash on the street? Maybe I missed some of these answers, but regardless, I have a lot of questions.

One of the most awesome aspects of Jonathan Moore's most recent books is how they are all stand alone novels set in a central world; each book falls under a different genre (psychological thriller, police procedural, dystopian thriller) and are set in different time periods. This being the third (dystopian thriller), I wasn't quite sure what to expect. It did have some similar vibes to The Dark Room; there was a bit of romance mixed in with some darker, suspenseful themes, but replace procedural with mobster/conspiracy theories and you'd have a clearer picture of what this book is.

While I loved the blending of lighter elements into the darker structure of TDR, I felt that the romance was a little too strong for my taste in this book. It's worth mentioning that this genre is not my typical go-to; in fact, I rarely read it and I feel like those who enjoy this type of story will appreciate it's subtle nuances much more than I was able to. The writing style is exquisite, and the ending was a nice little one-two punch, so I think I'm in the minority when feeling that the overall story was just a 3 star. Maybe I felt a little hurried along throughout the narrative and wished there had been just a little more meat to give it a few extra pages. Regardless, Moore is incredibly talented and will remain on my list of one-click authors. I admire his bravery at investigating many genres and tying them together in such a fun way.

This book was original, engrossing, and altogether addictive. I found myself refusing to sleep until I had finished the last word. I have to say this is something a bit different - in a great way - and just what I needed. Creepy twisty, and altogether satisfying. 5 stars all the way

The Night Market by Jonathan Moore is a sci-fi/dystopian genre with a little mix of romance. I definitely wouldn't consider this to be a thriller. With that being said, this book is not for everyone and I unfortunately am included in that everyone haha.

Detective Ross Carver and his partner Jenner get a call late Thursday night about a homicide. Jenner and Carver show up to the scene and a man is dead on the floor with an unknown substance that has eaten him alive. All of a sudden, a bunch of men show up with hazard suits and take Jenner and his partner off to a decontamination trailer. Both Carver and Jenner wake up three days later without having any memory of what happened at the scene.

The premise of the storyline was awesome... but it just was not there for me at all. The biggest issue I had with this novel were the characters. I felt like I was reading a robotic conversation between Jenner and Carver pretty much the majority of the novel. It just felt so blah and I was bored. I did not connect with any of the characters and it was MISSING so much depth.

Additionally, the story felt so ALL over the place. I felt like the author was trying too hard to have romance, suspense, sci-fi and a little bit of everything in this novel. I struggled big time trying to figure out how the puzzle fit nicely. It didn't...... haha period.

This is my first novel by Jonathan Moore... so I'm wondering if this is his type of writing style? Unfortunately, this novel was not really enjoyable for me.

Overall, 2.75 stars for me. Thank you so much to Netgalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for an advanced arc in exchange for an honest review.
Publication date: 1/16/18.