Even Though I Knew The End

This is a very sapphic queer 1940's noir detective novella set in Chicago; it follows Helen Brandt who is sucked into one last case with a payment she can't resist. I love all of the era-appropriate diction and dialogue; the whole story felt like the gritty internal monologue of a detective radio play. I just enjoyed this all quite a bit: the characters, the writing, the tone, the backstory and worldbuilding reveals, and the final action (even though I knew the end).

This story also gave me a lot of similar vibes to The Chosen and the Beautiful. Even though they're both from different eras, they're both stories in specific American time periods with magic and soul selling.

As far as books that I bought simply because I liked the cover/title/quick blurb when I saw it in the store, I've certainly done worse before. Maybe I should've spent a little longer researching it though because this book wasn't at all what I was expecting to be, and that's entirely on me.

I was very into the first third or so of the book: a woman detective in noir Chicago scopes out crime scenes and dips into secret lesbian speakeasies with some loose magical elements floating around the fringes. But then the magic started getting impossible to ignore and went full-blown Constantine with angels vs. demons and Deus ex Machina scenes. Kinda wished the supernatural elements stayed subtle, but that's a personal preference. I also got the sense that the protagonist was just kind of swept along by events happening around her and only made a significant decision at the climax. A little more agency on her end would've been appreciated.

Still, at 130-ish pages, this was the correct length for this kind of story. If Goodreads allowed half-star increments, I'd probably put it at 2.5, but I'll round up because lesbians.

Hard to say very much about this novella, without spoiling it, but I found it a thrilling page-turner, full of twists, but much more emotionally involving than I'd normally associate with noir.