Shutter

Locations
Call Number: Adult Book / Fiction / Horror / Emerson, Ramona, Fiction / Emerson, Ramona
On Shelf At: Traverwood Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Horror / Emerson, Ramona	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Horror / Emerson, Ramona	4-week checkout	In transit
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Emerson, Ramona	4-week checkout	Due 05-23-2024
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Horror / Emerson, Ramona	4-week checkout	Due 05-17-2024

"Rita Todacheene is a forensic photographer working for the Albuquerque police force. Her excellent photography skills have cracked many cases-she is almost supernaturally good at capturing details. In fact, Rita has been hiding a secret: she sees the ghosts of crime victims who point her toward the clues that other investigators overlook. As a lone portal back to the living for traumatized spirits, Rita is terrorized by nagging ghosts who won't let her sleep and who sabotage her personal life. Her taboo and psychologically harrowing ability was what drove her away from her hometown on the Navajo reservation, where she was raised by her grandmother. It has isolated her from friends and gotten her in trouble with the law. And now it might be what gets her killed. When Rita is sent to photograph the scene of a supposed suicide on a highway overpass, the furious, discombobulated ghost of the victim-who insists she was murdered-latches onto Rita, forcing her on a quest for revenge against her killers, and Rita finds herself in the crosshairs of one of Albuquerque's most dangerous cartels. Written in sparkling, gruesome prose, Shutter is a blood-chilling debut from one of crime fiction's most powerful new voices"-- Provided by publisher.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Solid book submitted by LaurenRJ on June 16, 2023, 11:58am I enjoyed this book overall. It particularly did a wonderful job describing the different (and often traumatic) early life experiences of the main character. I felt that the ending did feel a bit rushed and almost out of place, however. It felt almost like an afterthought. Despite this, it was a suspenseful and thought-provoking book.

Graphic Violence through a Lens submitted by sdunav on July 5, 2023, 11:35am This mystery starts out with some horrific scenes of the aftermath of violence (the main character is a forensic photographer), and continues in this vein. The settings - mostly Albuquerque and the Navajo reservation - are exquisitely pictured, and the characters are mostly interesting and well drawn with fascinating backstories. The transitions from the present to the past were a bit jarring for me, and the ending came a bit too abruptly. Recommended if you're in the mood for something fairly dark but powerful set in the Southwest.

Dark and Intense submitted by LAArnsdorf on July 21, 2023, 10:10pm Having heard several interviews with the author, I was expecting a pretty gruesome book; she sure delivered. The opening was almost shocking in its explicit descriptions of a murder scene.

Overall, I really liked this book. My main complaints are: 1) the author uses an alternating timeline, with every other chapter being in the past and the present. As the two timelines converged, I started to get really confused about where we were in time. And the past timeline dragged on a little too long. 2) The ending was morally ambiguous and too convenient. It felt like a cop-out in some regards.

I hope this becomes a series because it's a really interesting premise!

Thrilling ghost story submitted by vickik on August 4, 2023, 11:13am Shutter is a thrilling, suspenseful novel about Rita, a Navajo woman who is a forensic photographer and who can see and talk to ghosts. Her unique ability helps her when investigating crime scenes, but she has to keep it secret. The ghost of a murder victim haunts Rita and insists that she find her killer, or she will make Rita's life a misery. The murder story is interspersed with the story of Rita's childhood on the Navajo Reservation and her relationship with her grandmother.