This was a fun quick read. At only around 140 pages, this "locked room murder mystery" runs along at a fairly quick clip. The animal/human hybrid characters that make up the boy band are hilarious and each have their own character foibles that make them endearing.

Thank you NetGalley and Tor.com for the arc.

Daryl Greagory is one of those authors that I will always pick up and read when I see a new title. His novels and novellas are a wonderful collection of surprises, you never know what he will come up with next.

The Album of Dr. Moreau is a novella, it includes a tragic boy band with a rabid fan base of all ages. The members are all human animal hybrids, it is set in Las Vegas, there is a murder mystery and a really smart detective. The characters are interesting and that is all I am willing to say about the story line. I enjoyed it.
I recommend it.

📆 Release Date: May 18 (Digital ARC provided by Tor and Netgalley)

📖 HG Wells meets locked room mystery meets One Direction mania. The WyldBoyz are a pop group made up of genetically modified animal-human hybrids. When their manager is found dead in a hotel room on tour, the story becomes a 24-hour race to solve the murder mystery and every single member of the band has a different bit of information to offer.

👍 This was a fun read. I have loved everything I’ve read by Daryl Gregory so as soon as I heard about this one I jumped at the chance to get a copy of it. Mystery is not a genre I typically gravitate towards but Gregory has this talent for taking something and making it new and weird in all the ways I really love.

👎 There were parts of this that definitely didn’t work for me. It’s technically a novella and in the same ways you can feel when a novel is too long, you can also feel when it’s too short. And somehow, there were still parts of it that felt like filler.

📚 World War Z by Max Brooks & Gideon the Ninth by Tamsin Muir

The nitty-gritty: An inventive retelling with a pop music beat, The Album of Dr. Moreau is a funny, heartwarming surprise.

I once made the mistake of telling an Englishman my story, and he turned it into a novel. 

What do you get when you mash together The Island of Doctor Moreau, a famous boy band made up of animal/human hybrid musicians, an out of control afterparty in a Las Vegas hotel and a murder mystery? You get one of the funniest, wackiest and most clever stories of the year, told as only Daryl Gregory can tell it.

The story opens with the discovery of a dead body. Bobby O, one of the five members of the mega popular boy band WyldBoyZ, wakes up in a hotel room bed in a pool of blood—right next to the band’s manager, Dr. M, who appears to be very dead. Bobby partied pretty hard the night before and doesn’t remember much, but could he possibly have killed Dr. M? He has a motive—the band was about to break up because of Dr. M and the way he treated the unusual band members, and Bobby is now the prime suspect.

Enter Detective Luce Delgado and her partner Mickey Banks, called to the scene of a homicide at the Matador Grand. According to her boss, Luce has a way with celebrities and getting them to talk, which is why she’s been assigned to this high profile case. WyldBoyZ is one of the hottest bands around, and now it looks like their manager, Maurice Bendix, was killed by one of the band members.

But these aren’t your ordinary famous, super cute boys. The members of WyldBoyZ are animal/human hybrids and include Bobby O, the cute one (an ocelot); Devin, the romantic one (a bonobo); Matt, the funny one (a bat); Tusk, the smart one (an elephant); and Tim, the shy one (a pangolin). As Luce and Banks start to interrogate the boys, they discover the seedy underbelly of one of the most famous bands in the world and must untangle a bunch of lies to get to the truth of what happened. What was Dr. M up to? Where is his wife’s stolen laptop, and what is on the missing CD? And most curious of all, what happened on the barge that brought the five boys together? Luce only has twenty-four hours to figure out the mystery before the Feds take over the case, and she’s determined to bring the killer to justice.

The Album of Dr. Moreau has two mysteries going on: the murder of Dr. M, and the backstory of the band members and how they came to be animal/human hybrids. Gregory weaves these two mysteries together, slowly revealing the answers until the reader finally knows the whole story. And while the murder seems to be the main focus at first, I found myself much more interested in the WyldBoyZ origin story and what happened on the barge, which relates back to the H.G. Wells classic.

And speaking of the WyldBoyZ, I loved the idea of this macabre group of characters forming a band and becoming ridiculously famous. Each one has a distinct personality—a distinctly human personality—which is important considering that they’ve been spliced together with animal DNA and aren’t even considered to be human. Gregory explains the science behind how they are able to talk and sing, but it really didn’t matter much to me, I just went with the concept and enjoyed the hell out of it! Each band member has a different strength, for example, Tusk is the musical genius of the group and does all the band's song arrangements. In his afterward, the author mentions that he took inspiration from his daughter’s childhood obsession with The Backstreet Boys and NSYNC, and I swear I could hear the pop music of my youth playing in the background while I was reading.

I absolutely loved how funny this story is, and a lot of the humor comes from Detective Banks, believe it or not. Banks loves puns and bad jokes, much to Luce’s dismay, and he uses every opportunity possible to slip one into the conversation (there’s one comment about “the elephant in the room” that had me rolling on the floor). I also loved Gregory’s punchy dialog, especially between the band members. They’ve been through a lot together and developed that special kind of banter that seems light and funny to outsiders but actually conceals years of built up emotions.

And although the story has a light, humorous tone overall, there’s actually quite a bit of emotional depth that I wasn’t expecting. Gregory addresses issues like immigration, human rights and the plight of refugees, all things the WyldBoyZ have had to deal with. I really loved the storyline of Kat, the band’s roadie, who is hiding a couple of big gut punching secrets that aren’t revealed until the end. Luce’s nine year old daughter Melanie also has a role in the story. As Bobby O’s biggest fan, a girl who knows every WyldBoyZ song by heart, I loved the way she became involved in her mother’s case, and the moment she actually met her idols took me back to my own pre-teen days of worshiping one boy band in particular.

For such a short story, Gregory masterfully juggles a lot of characters and side plots and makes the whole thing seem effortless. We get a cool twist at the end that harkens back to The Island of Doctor Moreau, and he wraps up on a feel-good emotional note that made me turn back to the beginning to reread that first section. Just the right length, The Album of Dr. Moreau is a ton of laugh-out-loud fun with hard-to-forget characters and a couple of intriguing mysteries that will make readers quickly flip through the pages to see how things turn out.

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.

Less sharp horror than the author’s other books, this was a weird and engaging novel about a boy band. It was unexpected, dark and delightful with plenty of wit. An enjoyable surprise.

My thanks to NetGalley and MacMillian-Tor/Forge Books for a copy of this science fiction novella.

Science Fiction and mystery mash-ups are fairly known and popular subsections in their categories. A locked-room murder involving a Millennium-era Boy Band featuring genetetically-mutated human/animal hybrids who sing and dance with the best of them is a new genre type I can get behind.

Closing out their wildly successful tour in Las Vegas, the insanely over boy bad WyldBoyZ, party on their own floor in a luxury hotel on the strip, with invitees from the media, their label, fans and lots of drugs and drinks. As boundaries are lowered, tempers and fur raise , and words are angrily exchanged with the band's manager/Svengali who threatens the band who plan to separate and forage for a life on their own, with lawsuits and and knowing the band's worst secrets. Next day, a body is found, a hardboiled detective, whose daughter is a huge fan of the band, enters and is given 24 hours to find the murderer.

This is my first work by Mr. Gregory, and I feel I have been missing out. The story while based on another work is different, finely plotted, and each character is given a chance to show who they are. And it's all serious. This not oh look at a bunch of mutant animals singing and dancing like a circus, there is not only real work on the music, but on the laws and how these band members might be viewed by Governments, and fans. As much as I would like to know more, an Mr. Gregory leaves a lot to the imagination, I think the novella is a perfect length for the work. Any longer it might have gotten bogged down on who made the band, why, the science, the politics. Here you just have a band, with a singer who looks like a pachyderm, or a bat, involved in murder in a sealed hotel room. Honestly it doesn't get better than that.

In 2001, the world is obsessed with boy bands like *N Sync and Backstreet Boys. But those singing and dancing heart throbs have nothing on the human-animal hybrid vocal group the WyldBoyZ. Bobby (the cute one / ocelot), Matt (the funny one / giant bat), Tim (the shy one / pangolin), Devin (the romantic one / bonobo), and Tusk (the smart one / elephant) are wrapping up their world tour when their producer, Dr. M, is found murdered in his hotel room with deep slashes across his body.

Vegas detective Luce Delgado has to interview the BoyZ and solve this case in twenty-four hours without breaking her daughter’s (#1 fan of the WyldBoyZ) heart.

This novella is a quirky mash-up of a locked room murder mystery with the premise of the classic H.G. Wells novel The Island of Dr. Moreau spiced up with the boy band craze of the early 2000s.
The Album of Dr. Moreau is unique, amusing, and full of pun-filled cleverness with strong world building. You can breeze through this mystery in an afternoon and I highly recommend it to readers who enjoy classic retellings, sci-fi, and boy band nostalgia.

Thanks to Tordotcom and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. The Album of Dr. Moreau is scheduled for release on May 18, 2021.

This novella has gone straight to my "Possible 2022 Hugo Awards nominees" list.

Actually the first thing I should admit is that I don't think I've ever read The Island of Dr Moreau, so if Gregory is doing anything more clever than the sorts of things you can pick up with a general understanding of the story (and he probably is), then I missed it and I'm sorry about that. HOWEVER, this does mean that you don't have to know what the author is riffing off in order to appreciate this as a deeply funny, deeply interesting, and generally wacky story.

There's a lot going on in not many pages.

It's a detective story: there's been a murder, and it needs to be investigated, and it is. Despite TS Eliot's rules of detective stories.

It's framed as a story being told to someone who knows bits but not all of a story. The narrator occasionally intervenes.

It's definitely science fiction: after all, the members of the band that it revolves around are human-animal hybrids. And what a band they are.

It's about music, and I've had Backstreet Boys stuck in my head half the day, THANKS FOR NOTHING GREGORY.

It's about family and love and loss and identity and humanity. Stereotypes and terrible puns and growing beyond your childhood. Also, Las Vegas and fandom.

This story is one hell of a ride. I loved every minute of it, even when it made me feel a bit confused (that got cured), or sad (that didn't). You should definitely read it.

This book was a ton of fun. A clever mystery where everyone is a suspect and the truth is both shocking and delightful. The boy-band made up of chimeras was such an unusual and happy concoction that I knew I wanted to read this. What I didn't expect was to fall in love with the brilliantly observant detective and her pun-loving partner as they searched for clues in the chaos of a high end Las Vegas hotel, racing the clock. That it's all told in a letter to the detective's daughter really closes the story with just the perfect touch of sentiment,

This was such a bizarre and fantastic read. A locked room mystery featuring a boy band of H.G. Wells Dr. Moreau style animal/human hybrids. It was quirky and witty. I wasn't able (couldn't possibly!) have figured out the ending of it and I loved this book for it. This is my first book by Daryl Gregory, but it definitely won't be my last.

In the early 2000s, a boy band made of animal-human hybrids, the WyldBoyz, is ending their tour when their awful promoter is killed. A mystery with lots of animal puns ensues. It’s a fun novella with Gregory’s usual inventiveness despite some grim backstory.

The WyldBoyZ aren’t your average boyband. Sure, they have “the smart one,” “the cute one,” “the shy one” and so on, but “the smart one” really does have an elephant’s memory, and “the cute one” really is kittenish. That’s because the boyz are genetic hybrids, each with the features of a specific animal: Matt the Bat, Devin the Bonobo, Bobby the Cat, Tim the Pangolin, and Tusk the…well, elephant, obviously. Their past is shrouded in a haze of trauma, but their present is on full display: they tour the world dancing and singing five-part harmonies, to the ear-splitting delight of predominantly preteen girls. Although there are plenty of adult fans, too, devotees who will do almost anything for the band.

But after a night of hard partying, one of the boyz wakes up to find a mutilated corpse. And so begins Daryl Gregory’s excellent The Album of Dr. Moreau, an homage to mid-1990s boy bands and mid-1890s science fiction. This whodunit also has a healthy dose of Conan Doyle (even though the epigraph quotes T.S. Eliot) as a detective skilled in the arts of deception and her partner look to solve the crime. Was it a crazed fan looking to show twisted support? A fan of a different boyband, looking to destroy the WyldBoyZ? Or was the killer closer still, a member of the entourage—or the band itself?

The night unfolds over the course of several interviews conducted by Detective Lucia “Luce” Delgado and her punny partner Mickey Banks. They learn that the night devolved into sex and drugs, and then further, until blows were exchanged. Threats, too. The band, although at the height of their popularity, might be closer to splitting up than the fans realize. But is the rift due to waning interest, to disagreements about direction, or to several lawsuits alleging financial misconduct? Any of these is a good motive, but Luce isn’t so sure it accounts for all the contradictory clues she’s turning up.

Delgado keeps things close to the chest, very much a modern Sherlock type. She drops cryptic notes to Banks, pursues odd angles of questioning, and overall does the kind of detective work that’s just far enough ahead of the reader that all the reveals feel like bombshells. It’s a great mystery, too—a locked room stumper on top of a slasher murder, with plenty of other red herrings (pun intended).

Yes—speaking of puns, this is a book that delights in sly humor but doesn’t let it undermine the drama. It’s funny enough to have had me giggling to myself throughout, much to the annoyance of those sharing my space. All the characters are extremely funny in their own way, and compelling, too. Each of the boyz is well-drawn and distinct without being a caricature (or at least, if tending toward caricature, then a lovingly satirical one). With ensemble casts like this there’s always the chance that names and faces bleed together into a jumble, but here it’s the characters’ personalities, not their animal qualities, that ultimately make them stand out.

I really, really want to see more of the badass Luce Delgado, and I also want to see Mickey and Matt team up to be a wisecracking, pun-loving detective duo. I really hope that Gregory reuses these characters in some other book because I think they have enormous potential for further adventures.

Nobody ever talks about the Afterward, but I’m going to do it because I appreciated it so much. Gregory acknowledges his previous disdain for boybands and apologizes to his daughter for maligning them. “I think I was afraid that her obsession with bubblegum pop would stop her from appreciating the gritty authenticity of the bands of my youth, such as the Partridge Family and the Monkees.” (That’s sarcasm, for those unfamiliar.) It’s sweet on a personal level, but it also functions as a thoughtful reminder not to gatekeep or roll our eyes (too much). We only disdain pop (and really, anything popular) at our own peril, because it’s shaping the minds and voices of the next generation—in whatever miraculous forms they take.

Daryl Gregory is the award-winning author of Spoonbenders and We Are All Completely Fine. He takes his next foray into quirky fiction with his new novella, The Album of Dr. Moreau.
The genetically-modified human-animal hybrid pop band “The WyldBoyZ” are the hottest and newest thing going. Rescued from a secret government-science research barge, The BoyZ are taken under the wing (no pun intended) of a producer identified as “Dr. M”. At a hotel party after a show, Dr. M is found murdered in his bed, and all of the band members are suspects. Detective Luce Delgado is thrown into the mix as lead investigator, and she has less than 24 hours to find the culprit.
Gregory very obviously takes a lot of his cues from The Island of Dr. Moreau (of the late, great, H.G Wells’ fame) but he does it in his own way, adding quirky puns to the modern twist of a boy bands’ rise to fame. The novella is divided into segments, of course, but they are labeled as “tracks” as opposed to “chapters” (for example, “Track 1”), encouraging the musical theme. The novel is narrated by Luce Delgado, but each band member also gets the chance to tell his story, helping the reader learn more about the formation of the band, and its mysterious history.
There is some deeper societal reflections to be found within Gregory’s pages as well. As the band members tell their individual tales, they speak of their desire to be “seen as humans” but instead they were “indentured” and “labeled as immigrants” when they first arrived on the shores of the United States. Each animal-human hybrid struggles to identify as one or the other, either human or animal, and yet finds common ground with both.
The premise is creative and modern, and Gregory writes in a style all his own, full of puns and quirky repertoire. The novella left me wanting more, wanting to know more about the mysterious barge fire and rescue that left only the band members alive. I wanted to know more about their rise to fame and the dirty, decrepit goings-on of the victim, Dr. M. Of course, fans of Wells’ work can make their own speculations and assumptions as to the before and after stories, but the specific tales of these charming characters were what really touched a chord with me (again, no pun intended).
When the ending comes, it provides the perfect twist that is both unexpected and yet completely satisfying. The Album of Dr. Moreau will leave you wanting more.

This is a murder mystery novella about genetically modified furry boyband. Somehow, it’s really good.

The Album of Dr. Moreau inspired by 90s American boybands. I must first admit that as someone born at the turn of the century to immigrant parents, I know absolutely nothing about 90s American boybands. As an Asian American, what I do know is K-pop. It was only natural that every connection I made while reading this is referenced from my familiarity with K-pop and said fandom shenanigans. From this novella, I’ve learned that 90s American boybands and modern K-pop have a surprisingly lot in common.

With how insane the premise is, I ended up live-blogging this to a group of friends and like any responsible boyband fandom, we immediately took arms over who to stan in the WyldBoyZ. Does Tusk give off RM vibes? Is Devin a Problematic Fave or Cancelled™? Does Bobby the ocelot count as the resident catboy? (of course he does WTF michael ocelots are cats) Somehow Matt was immediately adopted upon first appearance, while Tim was declared the group cinnamon roll and maknae. All of this is to say that despite the relatively large cast for such a sort novella, Gregory shows a master class in introducing, and developing, a whole set of interesting and memorable characters. Within just several pages, we’re shown their personality, background, and potential motivations for murdering their manager.

While I won’t go too much into the worldbuilding, given how so much of it is critical to plot itself, I will say that Gregory has managed to craft a surprisingly plausible setting and background given how outrageous the premise is. I was surprised by how much we learn about the fans of the WildBoyZ (their actions totally believable having read some outrageous saesang stories) and their WildBoyZ themselves have a surprisingly heart wrenching background. The book is sold as a reinterpretation of a famous HG Wells story, The Island of Doctor Moreau, which I have not read. Despite that, I never felt like I was missing information or that knowledge of said short story was crucial to understanding this one.

If I had one complaint, it would be that the worldbuilding takes one step too far. Namely, the origins of the WildBoyZ are explained just a little too much, and with it all the spectacle and bizzare-ness of a GMO furry boy band loses part of its charm. More annoyingly, the whodunnit murder mystery goes from intriguing to, well, kind of deus ex machina. I can’t say much more without spoiling the ending, but if murder mysteries are supposed to be guessable, this one absolutely was not.

Overall, I rate this book a 4/5. The character work, the worldbuilding, and the sheer fact that I genuinely enjoyed a book about a group of genetically-modified furry boy band (though I admit my brain still cannot visually comprehend how these members look), make this novella amazing already. My one complaint would be how the ending is approached, but really, this book was a wild read and I had a ton of fun.

Review To Be Posted 7 May 2021

Another weird and wonderful world from Daryl Gregory. My only complaint is that the book is too short. But given that it’s mystery, short and sweet may be for the best.

This was a book that had me hooked from the cover art and the title. Usually mysteries aren't my genre of choice but this feels like it's far from your typical mystery (to be fair, a human-animal hybrid boy band will set a book apart from most within it's own genre). The characters managed to be both hilarious and heartbreaking which is quite a feat for a novella! Before I even finished the book I was telling coworkers at my library that they needed to pick this up as soon as it was available.

Daryl Gregory always gets a second look from me. I thought Afterparty interesting and clever, Harrison Squared interesting and clever, We Are All Completely Fine interesting and disturbing, Pandemonium interesting and challenging… You get the idea. When I think of Gregory’s writing, I think of clever, a story with emotional complexity, and a skewed way of looking at the world. The Album of Dr. Moreau achieves 2/3s of this, being a normal (for Gregory) mash-up relying on The Island of Dr. Moreau, boy-bands and a murder mystery.

Weighing in a novella length, it feels light on the emotional complexity I’m used to getting from his stories, as well as the knife-edged horror. If there’s horror here, it’s strictly of the boy-band variety, a type many will argue is inherently horrific for different reasons. Interestingly, although I originally hesitated to start reading at bedtime, (knowing how Gregory writes, I didn’t want it in my dreams), this one ended up being so easily digestible, I had no trouble reading before bed.

“But we don’t talk about [redacted], because… well, we’re a fucking boy band. We’re not The Cure.”

The feel of the book skews new or young adult, and with members of a boy-band center stage in plot and narration, it’s no surprise. The structural conceit is a 14-track album, with bonus track and Intro (which really should have been ‘Cover Notes’), which goes quickly. While it opens with a mysterious letter and CD addressed to a ‘Melanie,’ it really begins with the housekeeper discovering a very altered Bobby the party-cat(‘the cute one’) and a dead body in the room. Detective Lucia Delgado is at home trying to sleep through the racket of her daughter’s music when she’s called to the hotel by her partner for the investigation. Once they learn they have only a couple of days before the FBI (or FWS) steps in, the pressure to solve is on.

“‘Fifteen hours?’ Banks asked. ‘That’s not fair. In any decent movie, the hard-ass captain gives the detectives twenty-four hours to solve the case. Eddie Murphy got forty-eight.’
‘Eddie’s the criminal in that movie,’ Luce said.
‘Are you saying you’d rather be Nick Nolte? Nobody wants to be Nick Nolte, except for Gary Busey.'”

The beginning was a bit of a slower crawl for me, alternating between the viewpoints of various band members and the detective. Although we’re progressing the investigation through different people, their background knowledge is concealed, which makes for a complicated task of characterizing them. As such, they do rather take on boy-band personas, only being about as deep as their physical characteristics go.

The writing is still Daryl Gregory, although perhaps a lighter, more pop version:

“He’d evidently just stepped out of the shower, and he smelled amazing–a mix of citrus, cedar, and ex-boyfriend who just worked out.”

“They were both as fit and aggro-cheery as spin class instructors.”

Once I hit Track 8–excuse me, half way–I felt a lot more involved with both pace and writing style. I guess the exposition interviews just didn’t work as well as they could to keep me caring. It didn’t help that I was largely unfamiliar with the original work of H.G. Wells, and that I was waiting for the weirdness. The last quarter of the book is where I felt it really shone. This might be another case of Gregory appealing to a more niche group, only this case, I’m not in it–although I’m clearly in the age group the jokes are aimed at. Still, he writes it, I’ll read it. If it sounds intriguing, I’d say give it a shot.

The Album of Dr. Moreau is a SF/F mystery novella by Daryl Gregory, a multi-award-nominated (and winning I think) author of Sci Fi and Fantasy. My prior knowledge of Gregory comes from his Nebula nominated "Spoonbenders" and his Hugo (and otherwise) nominated "Nine Last Days on Planet Earth", both of which have been solid - but otherwise haven't really blown me away. But the hook on this novella interested me a little, so I figured I'd request it on NetGalley because why not.

And I'm glad I did, because The Album of Dr. Moreau really touched an itch I haven't realized needed to be scratched - for this is a loving self-aware pastiche of locked room murder mysteries....with a mystery featuring a boy band filled with genetically modified anthropomorphic animals whose groupies are furries and all the hijinx that result. It's really really fun as a result, and I'm very glad I picked it up, and if you grew up liking old Agatha Christie mysteries (or similar authors), you'll enjoy this a lot.



Plot Summary: A letter is sent to a pop star in May 18, 2021, from a fan....with a story from 20 years past. A story of a time 20 years ago when the "boy" band WyldBoyZ - made up of genetically modified anthropomorphic animals who spoke English and could sing in beautiful harmonies - got involved with the mysterious murder of their hated manager. A story featuring a detective investigating the scene, and using her particular knowledge to discover the truth about perhaps the strangest murder mystery ever known.....


Thoughts: You should be able to tell that The Album of Dr. Moreau is going to be a send-up of murder mystery novels by how it begins - by quoting TS Eliot's 5 rules of Detective Fiction, guidelines that the story then goes on to break into pieces. You have a letter describing a past mystery how it happened, with the story alternating perspectives between the band members and our main character Detective Delgado, as she attempts to figure out this seemingly most unusual of locked room mysteries.

And Detective Delgado is the perfect mix of insightful and brilliant and still down to Earth possible to make it all work, empathetic and yet self aware of the situation she's in (she used to be a magician with her famous father!), able to talk to various people in ways to get the truths, until the big reveal in the end. And the investigation is peppered with fun moments and occasional jokes, as you might imagine when all the fans of the band who are potential suspects are furries and the actual band (and also suspects) are ALSO anthropomorphic animals loved by children and adults around the world. In short, if you liked old detective novels and you like fun? You'll really love this.

The Album of Dr Moreau follows the murder of Dr M, producer of the WyldBoyZ, a boy band of genetically engineered humans-animals. Lucy Delgado has 24 hours to investigate the boys, and a case that goes back to before the band’s fame, and where they came from.

The Album of Dr Moreau is such a fun novella! It reads so quickly, jumping straight into a murder mystery, basically a locked room murder. Toss in a group of seemingly innocent genetically engineered hybrid humans, and you have a great time. Not only was the really well paced for a murder mystery, but it gives just enough background of all of the characters to feel like you actually know all of the boys in the band, as well as as really great grasp on Delgado herself. For a novella, Gregory manages to give everything you need for a well rounded story without skimping on details or character development. And the ending! Not only a satisfying, surprising ending to the mystery, but an added bit of heartwarming made it just wonderful.

This feels like a book for everyone, one that I can’t recommend enough. If you’re looking for a quick read to spend an evening with, a locked room mystery is always a good time, and adding in that touch of the science fiction just makes this book all the better.

This novella was amazing. I 100% requested it because of the amazing, Warhol-style pop-art cover, but wow this book is just as wonderful inside as it is on the outside.

A douche of a music producer is dead, and the suspects are all the members of the band he managed. But this isn’t a regular boy band. Each other members is unique in an entirely different way… they’re all humanoid animals. Bobby the ocelot, Matt the megabat, Tim the pangolin, Devin the bonobo, and Tusk the elephant all make up the hit boyband known as the WyldBoyZ and now everything is at risk with Dr. M’s death. Not only that, but the investigating detective, Luce Delgado, only has 24 hours to figure it all out before the feds get involved and potentially cause even more trouble.
This novella is a fast paced, locked-room murder mystery full of twists and turns that kept me guess right up until the big reveal. Every major player is incredible sweet and fully developed, drawing you to their side with ease. Not to mention the anthro aspect of each of the boys is such a neat idea and done so wonderfully. This isn’t a “furry story”, but the furry part of my brain was on cloud nine reading about these characters. I wish there was more because I loved it so much, but it’s the perfect length for what the story was and I’ll definitely be purchasing a physical copy come May because wow. I loved this so much.