FICTION

The Shining Girls

by Lauren Beukes
Mulholland: Little, Brown. Jun. 2013. 368p. ISBN 9780316216852. $25.99; ebk. ISBN 9780316216845. F
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In 1930s Chicago Harper Curtis discovers a key to a house that is a time-travel portal. He finds and tracks young girls who "shine" in his eyes through different eras, killing them as they develop into young women. He uses this fantastic ability as a means of extending and titillating his inner demons. Unknown to him, his victim in 1989, Kirby Mazrachi, survives his vicious attack. As she works to find the identity of her assailant, she tracks down clues to other killings and realizes a serial killer is at work. Her determination, cleverness, and insight are what saves the book from being just another thriller about an opportunistic, sadistic killer on the loose.
VERDICT H.G. Wells's The Time Machine set up fiction's basic mode of travel through time with a portal. Strangely for an award-winning sf author, Beukes (Moxyland; Zoo City) uses time travel as a plot vehicle yet neither explains nor expounds upon its magical existence. But readers who enjoy genre-bending fiction will be drawn to her memorable heroine's determination to save her future by resolving her past. [See Prepub Alert, 12/14/12.]
Reviewed by Susan Carr, Edwardsville P.L., IL , Apr 01, 2013
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