Between 2016 and the pandemic, I absolutely became a person who began to seek comfort in my entertainment, including reading. Then I moved into only wanting comforting books and having to force myself to read darker books, or anything that I assumed might be emotionally or mentally taxing. And now I’ve cycled back to needing a balance.
Well, 2016 was almost a decade ago (also, while I’m here throwing out mean-time truths: the 1980s were not 20 years ago), and we aren’t going to wake up tomorrow morning in a suddenly, magically better world. In the meantime, I don’t want to continue being limited in my entertainment and missing out on things.
Not everyone delves into comforting things during hard times. Many people seek out dystopian books during pandemics, read history and activist books about current political issues, and some people with anxiety and panic disorder use horror books to give their anxiety “a reason.” As I keep working toward a balance in my own life, I thought I’d highlight some “dark” books I’ve really liked.
Exposure (Rita Todacheene, #2) by Ramona Emerson
This is dark in theme, cases, and graphically describes crime scenes.
This is the sequel to Shutter, and while you won’t be lost starting here, it is about the lead unraveling from events in the first book. Exposure is darker than Shutter, so I selected the former for this list’s purpose, but 100% recommend both! In Exposure, you get two POVs: there’s Rita Todacheene, a forensic photographer who grew up on a Navajo reservation and has been spiraling out from seeing ghosts because of how demanding and cruel they can be when she doesn’t listen to them. And then there’s a “righteous” serial killer who you watch grow up in a group home, and now think he’s performing mercy killings. It’s a haunting procedural with a fantastic lead character.
The Initial Insult (The Initial Insult #1) by Mindy McGinnis
This is dark in tone and theme (and has animal death), and an excellent exploration of revenge and anger.
Tress Montor has a lot of things to be angry about, including being shunned by the entire town and believing her ex-best friend fed her dog to her alligator and graffitied her home (which has a dangerous animal attraction). Certain that her ex-best friend also knows what happened to her missing parents, Tress decides she’s going to slowly brick her into a wall à la Edgar Allan Poe (“The Cask of Amontillado”) until she confesses. I know! The book is as wild and fckd up as that sounds!
Theme Music by T. Marie Vandelly
This is a dark mystery thriller with appeal for horror fans.
The case/mystery at the heart of the book—which explores trauma—is a family murder-suicide case where only a baby survived. No longer a baby, Dixie Wheeler decides to move back into the family home where her father murdered everyone else with an ax, and, obviously, that isn’t a great idea. As she questions whether the actual house is now haunted, she also starts to think that maybe her uncle was right: maybe her father wasn’t responsible for the murder-suicide…
Browse the books recommended in Unusual Suspects’ previous newsletters on this shelf. See upcoming 2025 releases, and mysteries from 2024 and 2023. Check out this Unusual Suspects Pinterest board and get Tailored Book Recommendations! Until next time, keep investigating! In the meantime, come talk books with me on Bluesky, Goodreads, and Litsy.
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