A futuristic thriller with a twisted scheme to sabotage society in a way to benefit a few!

San Francisco is home to detective Ross Carver and the horror/crime scene he discovers in a luxury apartment. A dead body and a suspicious substance covering it. Something is terribly wrong and Ross finds himself thrust into a decontamination process.

Ross wakes up in bed and discovers he has been unconscious and has no memory of the past two days! His neighbor, Mia is by his side and is playing nurse. Just what is her motivation?

This book is set in the future and has quite a bit of scientific and technology references relating to the "conspiracy" that has taken over the city.

Fans of strong police procedural stories should enjoy and this one has a complex and terrifying conclusion that somehow seems possible in our heavily technology inundated society.

Detective Ross Carver and his partner are on duty on what seems to be any other Thursday night when the get the call that there has been a homicide. Arriving at the scene in a luxurious home things don’t seem to be quite right that night but Ross and his partner go about securing the scene. Just as they’ve about cleared the home and gone in to inspect the body a group of men enter the premises dressed in hazard gear and yank Ross and his partner out into a decontamination trailer.

On Sunday Ross awakens in his apartment with his neighbor, Mia, watching over him. Ross has no memory of the what had happened to land him in his neighbors care but she tells him he was brought in by what looked like other officers and told he’d been poisoned. Ross only has memories from the Wednesday before and needs to find out just what happened to him the last four days and how he ended up back at his place unconscious.

First, The Night Market by Jonathon Moore seems to be loosely tied to two of his previous books, The Poison Artist and The Dark Room. I did not realize this when picking this one up or I might have passed this one by myself. I’m not sure how much of the story has been built in the other two reads or even how connected that they are but all throughout this book I was finding myself wondering just what was missing but perhaps that may be the answer.

This story while not a bad one overall still seemed to me to be a bit disjointed at times as if things were just tossed in here and there on a whim. It starts off a bit as a police procedural then moves onto science fiction the perhaps a drama with a mystery and even a bit of romance all the while changing from each genre here and there throughout the book. Normally combined genres draw me in and don’t want to let go but with this one I struggled with how they fit quite often although there were still moments of being completely engaged. All in all a rather odd experience to say the least. When finished with this one I still struggled a bit with my thoughts since there were times it really shined and had some interesting ideas in the story but overall I think it’s one that ended as a just OK read for me and unfortunately will be a bit forgettable when said and done.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Thriller like X-files, kind; no thriller like Blade Runner? Yeah could be, lets just say a great thriller.

I received an ARC from NetGalley to read and review. The below is my honest, unbiased opinion. Thank you, Jonathan Moore, the publisher, and NetGalley, for allowing me to review.

It’s late Thursday night, and Inspector Ross Carver is at a crime scene in one of the city’s last luxury homes. The dead man on the floor is covered by an unknown substance that’s eating through his skin. Before Carver can identify it, six FBI agents burst in and remove him from the premises. He's pushed into a disinfectant trailer, forced to drink a liquid that sends him into seizures, and is shocked unconscious. On Sunday he wakes in his bed to find his neighbor, Mia—who he’s barely ever spoken to—reading aloud to him. He can’t remember the crime scene or how he got home; he has no idea two days have passed. Mia says she saw him being carried into their building by plainclothes police officers, who told her he’d been poisoned. Carver doesn’t really know this woman and has no way of disproving her, but his gut says to keep her close. A mind-bending, masterfully plotted thriller—written in Moore's "lush, intoxicating style" (Justin Cronin)—that will captivate fans of Blake Crouch, China Miéville, and Lauren Beukes, The Night Market follows Carver as he works to find out what happened to him, soon realizing he's entangled in a web of conspiracy that spans the nation. And that Mia may know a lot more than she lets on.

What a deliciously thrilling read! Stories like these remind me of whodunit murder plots. Let's just call these a whattheheckhappened mystery plot, and Moore did a great job executing it. With each new piece of the puzzle, we begin to unravel the mystery surrounding the night Carver lost his memory. This fast-paced thriller left me guessing until the very end, which I rather enjoyed, given Moore's captivating writing and superb character complexes.

The Night Market takes the mystery/thriller genre and mashes it with dystopia and science fiction. A fast-paced and overall enjoyable read, the plot elements are often confusing and, especially early in the book, a bit hard to follow. The characters here are not very well developed or drawn, but it is the plot and the layers of mystery that is the focus here, not the individuals.

I'm not quite sure how to review this book. It - the idea, the premise - has SO much potential. It starts wonderfully (despite some confusion, but more on that later) with Carver and Jenner being part of something bigger and something to which they're not privy.

And I enjoyed the way Carver unpicked the pieces to uncover the 'missing' time. Moore introduces a number of threads and Mia (Carver's neighbour) is certainly a welcome inclusion.

However... I note I said the same thing about The Dark Room... it felt as if elements of the plot were out of order. Names are thrown around or cases referenced and yet we don't learn more about them until later. I'm not sure if Moore's being purposefully oblique or there are editing glitches but it meant I continued to get frustrated. Again it felt as if I came in half-way through a series and though Moore talks about three of his novels forming a series, the characters in each are new.

I think some will be frustrated with the ending but I quite liked it. Again, I think there were (are) a few plot holes, but it's quite clever and a bit of a mindf*ck.

I think if these books flowed more effortlessly I'd adore them but though the plots are really original and interesting, they're too easy to put aside because I get tired of trying to work out if I'm SUPPOSED to know something or not.

3.5 stars

I don't even know what just happened...Seriously, what did I just read?

So Is that part of a series or not? Sort of??? Maybe???? Apparently....

UGH!

The beginning of this book was off the hook. And since I said "hook", I think it is safe to say that the opening pages had me hooked. It is late on a Thursday night and Inspector Ross Carver and his partner, Jenner, have been called to a crime scene. There is a dead man on the floor. He is covered in an unrecognizable substance which appears to be eating through the man's skin. Before he and his partner can get closer to look, they are removed from the scene by the FBI who take them to be decontaminated/disinfected.

That was Thursday night. Carver wakes up and it is Sunday and his neighbor, Mia, is sitting in a chair next to him. They really do not know each other but she saw him getting dropped off and decided to help care for him. Carver is unsure about her, heck, he really does not know her at all but decides to keep her close so he can fill in some missing gaps for him.

I can't really say much else. There are some twists and turns and cat and mouse moments in this book. The pacing is fast and to be honest, I really had no idea what was going to happen next. The book is set in the not so near San Francisco. This book had many "feels" to it. At times it felt set in the 80's, at times dystopian, at times in the future, it was weird yet strangely compelling and interesting. I don't think that this book is for everyone. It was weird. But fans or Moore should not be disappointed.

I received a copy of this book from Houghton Miflin Harcourt and NetGalley in return for an honest review.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2132338273?book_show_action=false

If you've read any of my other reviews, you know that I love a good setting.  When I read, I want to be pulled into the story, and nothing does that more than a well-written setting.  The Night Market does exactly that: creates a world that gripped me from the moment I turned the first page.

Not that it's a pretty world.  Far from it.  The San Francisco pictured in the book isn't all trolley cars and Fisherman's Wharf.  In the book's near future setting, San Fran becomes a place of crumbling buildings and desperate people.  The official book blurb says that The Night Market would appeal to fans of China Miéville, and I completely agree (being a big Miéville fan myself.)  I also thought of Blade Runner and Sam Spade novels.

The characters are also straight out of film noir.  Ross Carver is a hardened detective with a heart of gold, and his mysterious neighbor across the hall reminded me of Lauren Bacall.  In fact, I could picture Bogie and Bacall when I was reading this book.  Although there is not a lot of depth to the characters, I didn't mind.

Oftentimes, it seems that there are no new ideas in books; however, The Night Market is based on a very clever idea - one that I won't reveal since I don't want to spoil it.  However, after reading the book, I find myself thinking that maybe this frightening plot could someday be a reality.  Let's hope not!

The Night Market was a spine-tingling book and definitely worth the read.  If you like film noir with a dash of sci-fi, you'll thoroughly enjoy this book.

Intense and uncomfortable speculative fiction. Engrossing, disquieting, conspiracy, manipulation, ambiguous conclusion. I haven't read The Poison Artist by Moore, but now I want to--I think. Maybe because I am now so distrustful of any rich and/or powerful institution (business, industry, church, state) right now, The Night Market had a chilling effect.

Most outstanding! The fairly-near future is very scary, but quite easy to see the roots of it in the present. The author's vision is amazing! What a great mind and what a great writer! I could not have imagined the twists and turns, but they easily grew out of the story! Loved it!

So, I only discovered this book was the third in a sort of 'series' by Moore until I read the Acknowledgements and I was all set to say I felt there were missing links. However, I'll give 'The Night Market' the benefit of the doubt, in that perhaps those links would've been present if I'd read the other books. It was a reasonably pleasant and interesting read; and I enjoyed the character of Carver, he reminded of Harry Bosch. However, there were parts where I still feel one step behind, as if I couldn't quite follow what Moore was trying to suggest i.e., I was clearly supposed to link together information that is revealed to previous events but I often struggled to form a full picture. I can see the parallels drawn between Moore and Miéville, and I've had similar experiences with his books so perhaps this just isn't for me. There will definitely be people who will love this book! Unfortunately, and something that isn't Moore's fault, this is the third book I've read recently where the main female character, whose intentions are unknown, is called Mia. The storyline was not quite what I expected, almost sci-fi rather than cop thriller, which was not an unpleasant surprise (I do enjoy my cop thrillers). I loved that it was set in San Francisco as that was the first US city I visited as an adult. I remembered the street names and locations, clearly visualising the scenes in my mind and even thinking 'I've been there!'. Sadly, some of the book's message was lost on me: when it is set? Where does the title originate from? Was there some hidden message about today's population being glued to their phones and drawn in by advertising? And what are glowcards?! Thus, I remain a little unsure of my thoughts on this one but it was well written and did keep me reading to see what happened, but mainly to eradicate the confusion I felt more often than I would've liked.

I found this book to be fascinating with a very original plot and a lot of suspense. Detectives Carver and Jenner answer a call to a house one night on patrol only to find a person who has died a very suspicious death. They each wake up 5 days later after "having the flu" and don't remember what happened. Carver meets a mysterious woman named Mia who is his neighbor. They end up investigating other mysterious deaths, mind control, etc. The ending was not your usual everything is tied up happily but leaves you wondering and wanting to read more.

----------
"If she's not crazy," Jenner said, "then she knows something. But maybe it's not the same thing she's telling you."
----------

This quote sums up SO MUCH of this book, it's unreal... This was an absolutely spot-on thriller. By rights, I should be too freaked out to even live in the world these days - I seem to keep reading this type of incredibly detailed, scarily sophisticated thrill-ride book about the potential for insane evils done in the name of technology and progress...

This one seemed like it was starting slow, then whip-crack, the action kicked in half-way through the second chapter - and from that moment on, nothing is as it seems. Every throwaway remark, every casual observation, every adjective is a clue - and when the Big Reveal comes, handfuls of pages from the end, you won't believe it. Or you will. Or you will wonder... It was THAT kind of book: a perfect storm of paranoia and suspicion and teasers. You're given just enough to keep you hooked tight, then - BAM - the floor drops out. Then you're lulled back a bit, until it happens again. But somehow you never learn from those falls, never grow accustomed to the bait-and-switch in the action. Moore is THAT good.

Ross Carver is the perfect protagonist for this story - gritty, wary, but looking to believe. He lends an air of credibility to the entire affair that is indisputable. His supporting cast is equally strong, bringing him what he needs without ever seeming to be too tidy about it. The near-future (presumably) San Francisco Moore drops us into is practically a character itself, full of quirks and foibles and edgy personality that worms its way into your brain while you read until you forget that this is not the *real* world. At least not yet.

----------
Everyone's heard of the devil, whether they've had any dealings with him or not.
----------

The bad guys are deliciously evil - even, if not especially, when they're being banal about their evil deeds. Again, a spot-on delivery mechanism for the tale being told. The plot has more angles than an Escher staircase, and each character seems to present at least that many faces... But the layers are subtle, nuanced - there's so much going on in the background that at times it seems impossible that it will all come together, especially as you near the end and realize there aren't *that* many pages left but there are still warehouses' worth of loose ends. Yet the ending never felt rushed or inappropriately tidied together; the Reveal plays out with the same delicate surgical precision of the rest of the book, despite its relatively small (small in number of pages only, I assure you) stature.

I literally couldn't put this one down. This was my first foray into Jonathan Moore's world(s) but I assure you it won't be the last, especially since I now understand there are two other books set in this same world!

I confess this is my first Jonathan Moore book but it won't be my last! Set in the near future, homicide detectives, Carver and Jenner are called to a suspicious scene where they encounter what can only be called an X-files sort of situation that leaves them both with no memories of what happened. When Carver awakens in his own bed, he finds his lovely neighbor, Mia reading aloud to him and she has been caring for him for two days. Intrigued, he tries to discover more about her while struggling to regain his own memories. But none of this is easy and as he and Jenner are drawn deeper into a mysterious plot involving mind-control and murder, he realizes there is more to Mia than meets the eye. Can she be trusted? Frighteningly real and tightly paced, this book is a great thriller!

The Night Market Jonathan Moore


Set in the near future, I don’t think it would be right to label this book as Sci-fi, more like an anticipation of how things will be in 50 years time.

Carver and Jenner are two Inspectors in the San Francisco Police Department. On Thursday night they attend a grisly murder scene with two uniform cops.

The body is decomposing before their eyes, but not in a way they have ever seen before. As they begin to examine it a HazMats team burst into the room and usher them through decontamination.

Sunday morning Carver wakes up in bed with no memory of anything since Wednesday.

His neighbour, the Hermit like Mia, is reading a book at his bedside and informs him she saw some people bring him home on Friday, and that she had looked after him ever since.

Carver is the main protagonist of the book and most of the narrative is told from his point of view. As he battles to regain his memory he starts to put together what happened to him and his partner; but who can he trust, Jenner is back at work as though nothing had happened, and he knows nothing about Mia. There is nobody else.

His investigation links to the murder he and Jenner had been investigating for some time. Somebody was killing people in China Town. They were having their faces carved open and then being cut in half. How is this linked to Thursday nights body.

His discoveries will put him in danger, test his relationships and see people die.

All of this in the first 15% of the book (on an e-reader) and what follows is a good old fashioned conspiracy theory set in a slightly futuristic San Francisco.

The story is compelling, and I found myself totally engrossed in it. Jonathan Moore has set the story in a time which is not unconceivable, and his descriptions of the City, its population, its crimes, and its utter deterioration are as addictive as the characters.

I don’t usually read Sci-fi, and I haven’t seen anything in the blurb for this book to suggest it is, but the story is so well written that I didn’t realise it was set in the future until I was hooked by it. Then there was no putting it down.

I will be looking up more of Mr Moore’s books. This one is very good.

Pages: 272
Publisher: Orion
Publishing Date: 11 January 2018.
Available to pre-order on Amazon

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview The Night Market by Jonathan Moore.

What a brilliant book! It reminded me, in setting, of Blade Runner, the great movie based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. And this is a compliment because said movie is one of my favorites (and not mine alone). Night Market has, from page one, the same chilling atmosphere. The more chilling because it is set in a future that is all to near and sometimes even here already.
An SF book for fans of thrillers or a thriller for SF fans? It is both and more. It paints a vivid picture of a near future I don’t want to live in. But do I have a choice? The people in the book think they do. But can they really? The characters are compelling, the action is real and most of all, it gives you plenty food for thought. I will certainly try and find more books by this author.

"Do you ever think there's maybe something that's gone wrong with the world?"

The setting is San Francisco, but in a possibly near future time, when Inspector Ross Carver and his partner Jenner come upon a sight so unusual -- well the dead body part is not out of the ordinary -- it's the fact that it looks like it is has been cooked and eaten that takes them by surprise. Moments later, the FBI storms their scene and whisks them off to be decontaminated. Carver wakes a few days later to find his neighbor, Mia, reading to him. What follows is an incredible tale of greed and memory manipulation that has affected the entire society.

This was such a fast paced, action packed thriller that I could not put it down once I read the first few lines. The writing is excellent and the characters are immediately compelling as is the story line. It's part a scary treatise on what is happening in the lives of consumers, and also a complex mystery involving a shady fringe group and a diabolical scheme. There's a bit of a sci-fi element to the narrative and I absolutely loved the theme and the execution of the book's premise. I've only previously read THE DARK ROOM by this author, but am dying to get a hold of the other book in this literary triptych, THE POISON ARTIST. The picture that the author paints of a world in decline is enough to make me take a step back from my daily life and contemplate this alternate reality. It could happen.

I just got the approval today and couldn't wait to get to it and read it in one sitting. Highly recommended!

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview The Night Market by Jonathan Moore. A police detective and his partner come upon a strange crime scene - someone (or what''s left of him - is dead and unrecognizable. As they are investigating, the "FBI" rushes in and takes them away. They are taken to a holding center where they are stripped and sanitized. The only problem is that neither of the police man remember what happened - records are erased, gps data gone, cell phones wiped clean, and no memories. Inspector Carver believes there is something bigger going on here, and he wants to get to the bottom of this mystery - or die trying.
Great characters, descriptive and detailed - the author takes you on a somewhat appocolyptic journey for the truth. Very good.

The Night Market is certainly a thrill ride. It's a great set up with this bizarre crime and then Carver having to not only solve it, but piece together his missing memories at the same time. Carver is your classic hard-boiled detective, swimming through layers of betrayal and corruption while trying to get the skinny on the femme fatale character of Mia.

Tons of twists and turns. The world reminded me of Blade Runner San Francisco-style, which was a plus in my books. And I loved the thematic commentary on a consumer culture run rampant.

Apparently this is the third and final book in a series featuring loosely interconnected characters. I didn't know that at the time, and it didn't impact my reading enjoyment, though it did make me want to go back and read the others. Loved it!

Thank you to NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for a copy in exchange for a fair and honest review.

**This book will be featured on my Curl up with a good book Sunday blog post on Sept. 17/17. I will also post to goodreads and bootlicks then.