Relentless Melt - SFBA Book Club

eBook, 352 pages

English language

Published June 6, 2023 by Melville House.

ISBN:: 978-1-68589-033-9
OCLC Number:: 1381093202

(1 review)

Stranger Things meets the Golden Age of Detective fiction in a rollicking supernatural detective thriller that introduces Artie Quick, a sales assistant at Filene’s in Boston, who moonlights as an amateur detective.

The year is 1909, and Artie Quick—an ambitious, unorthodox and inquisitive young Bostonian—wants to learn about crime. By day she holds down a job as a salesgirl in women’s accessories at Filene’s; by night she disguises herself as a man to pursue studies in Criminal Investigation at the YMCA's Evening Institute for Younger Men.

Eager to put theory into practice, Artie sets out in search of something to investigate. She's joined by her pal Theodore, an upper-crust young bachelor whose interest in Boston's occult counterculture has drawn him into the study of magic. Together, their journey into mystery begins on Boston Common—where the tramps and the groundskeepers swap rumors about unearthly screams and other unsettling anomalies—but soon Artie …

Stranger Things meets the Golden Age of Detective fiction in a rollicking supernatural detective thriller that introduces Artie Quick, a sales assistant at Filene’s in Boston, who moonlights as an amateur detective.

The year is 1909, and Artie Quick—an ambitious, unorthodox and inquisitive young Bostonian—wants to learn about crime. By day she holds down a job as a salesgirl in women’s accessories at Filene’s; by night she disguises herself as a man to pursue studies in Criminal Investigation at the YMCA's Evening Institute for Younger Men.

Eager to put theory into practice, Artie sets out in search of something to investigate. She's joined by her pal Theodore, an upper-crust young bachelor whose interest in Boston's occult counterculture has drawn him into the study of magic. Together, their journey into mystery begins on Boston Common—where the tramps and the groundskeepers swap rumors about unearthly screams and other unsettling anomalies—but soon Artie and Theodore uncover a series of violent abductions that take them on an adventure from the highest corridors of power to the depths of an abandoned mass transit tunnel, its excavation suspiciously never completed.

Will Theodore ever manage to pull off a successful spell? Is Artie really wearing that men's suit just for disguise or is there something more to it? And what chance do two mixed-up young people stand up against the greatest horror Boston has ever known, an ancient, deranged evil that feeds on society's most vulnerable?

2 editions

Phil in SF reviewed Relentless Melt by Jeremy P. Bushnell

Fun coming of age story

4 stars

Relentless Melt starts off with young Artie Quick attending their first investigation class at a night school for young men run by the Y.M.C.A. The teacher, an older policeman, observes that Artie appears to be a young woman wearing a young man's suit, making them ineligible for the class. Nevertheless, he seems inclined to keep Artie's secret.

Artie is taking the class to, as they later figure out, make sense of why their brother Zeb has abandoned the family for a life of crime. But at the outset Artie thinks they're intrigued by solving crimes. And so Artie and their best friend Theodore, a young adult with family money but living on his own, decide to practice solving crimes by investigating a scream heard in a local park late at night.

The book is a little bit coming of age, a little bit amateur sleuths solving a mystery, and a …

Relentless Melt starts off with young Artie Quick attending their first investigation class at a night school for young men run by the Y.M.C.A. The teacher, an older policeman, observes that Artie appears to be a young woman wearing a young man's suit, making them ineligible for the class. Nevertheless, he seems inclined to keep Artie's secret.

Artie is taking the class to, as they later figure out, make sense of why their brother Zeb has abandoned the family for a life of crime. But at the outset Artie thinks they're intrigued by solving crimes. And so Artie and their best friend Theodore, a young adult with family money but living on his own, decide to practice solving crimes by investigating a scream heard in a local park late at night.

The book is a little bit coming of age, a little bit amateur sleuths solving a mystery, and a little bit of magical fantasy. When Artie's investigations instructor suddenly cancels class, Theodore convinces Artie to join him at his school where he's learning a bit of being a magician. Theodore's one spell he's working on allows him to quietly sneak quietly by casting a sphere spell around his feet.

You'll notice I use the they pronoun here. A lot of what makes this good is Artie feeling how their sense of self changes when they're wearing a men's suit. Neither Artie nor Theodore quite knows what to do with themselves, Theodore's attraction to Artie, and Artie's feelings of ambiguity to Theodore.

The character study is intertwined with a lovely mystery. The scream they heard leads them to a criminal enterprise that is abducting young women, including the daughter of Artie's teacher. The sleuthing led to something I was not expecting in the least, and yet it made for a great story.

Lists

Passes the "Bechdel Test"