Curious Toys

Name: Curious Toys
Brand: Hachette Audio
Availability: InStock
Author: Elizabeth Hand
ISBN: 9781549142765

Author: Elizabeth Hand

Narrator: Carol Monda

Unabridged: 10 hr 45 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Mulholland Books

Published: 10/15/2019

Categories: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Amateur Sleuth, Historical Fiction, Women Sleuths

Synopsis

An intrepid young woman stalks a murderer through turn-of-the-century Chicago in "this rich, spooky, and atmospheric thriller that will appeal to fans of Henry Darger and Erik Larson alike" (Sarah McCarry).

In the sweltering summer of 1915, Pin, the fourteen-year-old daughter of a carnival fortune-teller, dresses as a boy and joins a teenage gang that roams the famous Riverview amusement park, looking for trouble.

Unbeknownst to the well-heeled city-dwellers and visitors who come to enjoy the midway, the park is also host to a ruthless killer who uses the shadows of the dark carnival attractions to conduct his crimes. When Pin sees a man enter the Hell Gate ride with a young girl, and emerge alone, she knows that something horrific has occurred.

The crime will lead her to the iconic outsider artist Henry Darger, a brilliant but seemingly mad man. Together, the two navigate the seedy underbelly of a changing city to uncover a murderer few even know to look for.

About Elizabeth Hand

Elizabeth Hand is the author of more than nineteen cross-genre novels and collections of short fiction. Her work has received the Shirley Jackson Award three times, the World Fantasy Award four times, and the Nebula Award twice, as well as the James M. Tiptree Jr. and Mythopoeic Society awards.

Reviews

Goodreads review by David on April 15, 2020

Really wanted to love this book. The writing craft is great. Loved-loved the details of the time period and could've read the book just for reliving that age. I am a proponent of the "Fictive Dream," and it's just not here. I enjoyed the main character Pin, a little girl masquerading as a boy, in a......more

Goodreads review by Doug on November 06, 2021

4.5, rounded up. How one feels about this story would depend a great deal, I would think, on how much one knows of, and appreciates, the life and work of real life outsider artist Henry Darger. I first became aware of, and admittedly obsessed with him, upon hearing Natalie Merchant's gorgeous 2001 so......more

Goodreads review by Charlie on November 15, 2019

The premise was interesting, and thus, I had great hopes when I started reading. Alas, about a third of the way in I thought I might not finish, but, since a friend whose opinion I respect and trust said some encouraging things, I did make my way through. My issue was that I never felt any real conne......more

Goodreads review by Gabrielle on July 26, 2023

When I picked up this book at a cute bookstore in Burlington, I did not realize that it was written by the same author who wrote “Waking the Moon”, a book that was much better in theory than in practice. I think I would have been more hesitant to pick it up had my brain made than connection, but I d......more

Goodreads review by Tanabrus on May 19, 2022

Questo libro aveva tutti gli elementi per potermi piacere molto: ambientato nella Chicago di inizi novecento (e con alle spalle una discreta mole di lavoro di ricerca), focalizzato sul grande parco divertimenti e sugli emarginati (gli zingari, gli italiani, i polacchi, i vagabondi che lavorano nei p......more

Quotes

ONE OF THE YEAR'S BEST BOOKSLitHub * Chicago Public Library * CrimeReads

"Hand--whose masterly oeuvre ranges from the eerie to the horrific, post-punk to magic--delivers another brilliant mystery.... Wonderfully imaginative and richly delivered."—Ivy Pochoda, New York Times Book Review

"Curious Toys is itself like a carnival ride: alternatively dazzling and terrifying, disorienting and marvelous."—Amy Stewart, The Washington Post

"Brilliant, bustling . . . While Hand paces her mystery with classic precision, the real reward of Curious Toys lies in its richly textured panorama of Chicago during a crucial period of change, and in its vivid characters."—Gary Wolfe, Chicago Tribune

"Deliciously creepy . . . Atmospheric . . . Hand's gripping plot mines the era's vagaries with aplomb."—Associated Press

"[Pin] is a remarkable young sleuth. . . . Curious Toys is a thriller to be savored-tough, funny, strange, and revelatory."—Michael Berry, Portland Press Herald

"This book contains a rare kind of perfection: Elizabeth Hand's rough, observant magic draws into its circle great historical accuracy, a cross-dressing central protagonist, a wonderfully tender portrait of the great Outsider Artist Henry Darger, a vibrant thriller plot, reflections on gender and its place in civic order, a helpful Ben Hecht, and one of the greatest climactic drop-the-mic moments I've ever read -- and does all this while patiently setting into place the warm emotional armatures that make Curious Toys so moving."—Peter Straub

"A well-crafted and deliciously unsettling period thriller."—Booklist (starred review)

"Hand is a mage of the page.... [Curious Toys] will enchant those who like tough-girl protagonists and antiheroes, as well as fans of historical crime fiction."—Library Journal (starred review)

"Curious Toys is wonderful! I stayed up late two nights in a row, transported. It will be catnip for readers who love Chicago, circuses, cross-dressers, and early cinema."
—Audrey Niffenegger, bestselling author of The Time-Traveler's Wife