I’m so sad to be writing a review of Dark Corners, because it’ll be the last book from one of my favorite authors of all time. Ruth Rendell died earlier this year and left behind a tremendous legacy. As her alter ego Barbara Vine she wrote beautifully complex psychological thrillers, and while her Rendell books were more procedural they still always had crazy amounts of depth. Dark Corners isn’t her greatest Rendell work (I reserve that praise for Judgment in Stone), but I was duly enthralled by the tale of an ordinary man whose bad choice puts him in harm’s way thanks to the sociopath upstairs. RIP, storyteller extraordinaire.

I’m also glad I checked out An Ember in Ashes, a fantasy debut by Sabaa Tahir. Set in a vaguely gladiatorial setting where three military students have to battle for the title of Emperor, the book hit a lot of typical notes but the writing was strong enough that I could forgive. I also liked how it explored the evils of slavery and the bonds of friendship. I only hope that the book doesn’t fall apart when moving out of a structure world into an unstructured one.