The story didn't quite grab me to be honest but I find Cass to be such an engaging main character and it was my interest in her that kept me turning the pages.

When I finished the first Cass Neary novel, Available Dark, I immediately requested the next one from the library. I love how this one continues the photography element and perhaps that is always the impetus for Cass to travel to a new place. This time around a photography collector wants her to travel to Finland to see if the prints from a photographer are worth purchasing. She discovers that she has unwittingly become a part of a community of photographers who take pictures of the dead or dyin...

When I began this novel the main character, Cass Neary, reminded me very much of another fictional hero, Claire DeWitt. If you happen to like your main character to be hard drinking, drug using, a little too dependent on alcohol and occasionally violent then you will appreciate Cass. She leaves New York under cloud of criminal suspicion to take on a job in Finland. She is known for a primary book of photography she created 30 years earlier and she has been hired to verify set of photographs, ver...

Available Dark by Elizabeth Hand (Minotaur) is the sequel to Generation Loss, and both are excellent, compulsively readable contemporary dark suspense novels about Cassandra Neary, a brilliant photographer who lit up the 70s punk landscape briefly but quickly burned out with liquor and drugs. After escaping home to Manhattan after some real nastiness in Maine (Generation Loss). Neary is offered a great deal of money to fly all expenses paid to Helsinki and authenticate a series of five photograp...

Things Elizabeth Hand is great at describing:1. drug use, esp. various pharmaceuticals found in other people's medicine cabinets (and alcohol, esp. Jack Daniels)2. music, esp. punk rock of the 70s/80s and its culture3. photography and photographic equipment/technique4. bleak landscapes and bad weather5. grisly murders and the macabreIn this, the second of her Cass Neary series, these ingredients get cooked up in a Nordic stew that draws some clever (and very dark) parallels between ancient Vikin...

So, Cass. She's no hero. She's an addict who knows only one way to deal with problems - buy a bottle of Jack Daniels, crank the audio, get hammered. She won't say no to speed. Deadly troubles follow her or, maybe, she simply gravitates toward them. Death has always fascinated her and in this second book of the series we see how damaged Cass really is.And yet Hand makes her relatable, likable even.I don't think I know any other author able to make books so dark so beautiful.

This pacing of this crime novel is relentless--it's a true "page turner." But as action-packed as it is, what really stands out is the voice of the narrator. Cass Neary is morbid, burned out speed freak, occasional klepto with a dark sense of humor. Would I like to hang out with her in real life? Nope--she's too amoral and has a mean streak. But her narrative voice is additive, full of witty asides. She's a photographer with a dark-adapted eye and a subcultural autodidact, a chronicler of the wa...

I've been a fan of Elizabeth Hand for many years, so it's hard to present an unbiased view of any of her novels. Having jumped in with that initial disclaimer let me now gush briefly; I loved Available Dark.When I read Generation Loss in 2012 I ranked it in the top two novels I read that year. I fell in love with the wildly self-destructive Cass Neary, so this sequel was a carefully crafted exercise in delayed gratification, now finally satisfied.The novel is set in Finland and Iceland and drew

It's scary how much I relate to Cass Neary. Fiendishly good, but if you're new to this series start with #1.

'Available Dark' is book two in the Cassandra Neary noir-mystery series. In some ways, these are typical dark murder mysteries, but they are quite twisted morally. I have never read a series which turns mainstream ethics inside out so much. Not even the Dexter (Darkly Dreaming Dexter) books demonstrate this level of survival-amorality. However, I cannot say they are beyond belief. After all, people actually have done these things. We all know it. The question is, can one write of these true-ish

This is a world inhabited by aging punk musicians, artists, and necrophiles. Yes, necrophiles: a fascination with the dead is something these artists share, and use, to create their finished pieces. Cass Neary, our narrator, is a tough character and part of this crowd in New York City. But her strength gets tested when she’s relegated to the periphery of this world in Finland and Iceland, and trailed by a wake of murders.This is book 2 of a 4-part series (the 4th was just released in September)

If you like noir, you'll love this one. Noir both in tone and in actual darkness--Finland & Iceland in the winter. Add in some Nordic black metal music and, just for fun, art photos of dead people. Oh, yeah. For those of you who have not met Cass Neary, her claim to fame is a photography book entitled Dead Girls. She did this when she was young and has been pretty much a burn-out since. Cass is not someone you warm up to, unless you like spending time with people addicted to alcohol and drugs. S...

Cassandra Neary receives a voice message from Investigator Jonathan Wheedler. It is partly due to this voice message that Cassandra accepts an assignment from Anton Bredahl, a guy she just met over email. The other reason being that Anton wants Cassandra to travel to famed photographer Illkka Kaltunnen’s house to assess some art work of his to verify that they are real. Plus, Anton is going to pay Cassandra a lot of money. Cassandra could really use the money and this is a good way to leave town...

Well, hell. In this volume punk burnout photographer creep Cass Neary delves deeper into a world of transgressive photography and cult metal that make Joel Peter Witkin and Varg Vikernes look like choir boys. Cass herself makes John Constantine seem cherubic in comparison. You'll want to blast A Blaze In The Northern Sky on repeat while reading this. I did.

Remember how I didn’t take time to review the first Cass Neary book by Elizabeth Hand, because I’d already moved on to the second? Well, I’m on the third now. That should speak for itself!

Liz Hand describes music in prose as well as anybody I've ever seen. Scandanavian black metal is *not* my thing, but her description of the music -- and the photos -- in this book are a great counterargument for anyone who says you can't dance about architecture.

Gorgeously written. Spiky, burned-out photographer and punk hold-out Cass Neary is back, and she's a well-drawn character. Hand draws vivid, memorable pictures of Finland and Iceland, especially the latter in the midst of its current economic crisis. (As a New Yorker, I appreciated Cass's growing sense of dissonance with the gentrified Lower East Side, as well.) The novel's moral ambiguity is fascinating in the genre of mystery/thriller -- some people did Very Bad Things in the past, but moralit...

I absolutely loved this book! Unapologetically grim, Available Dark mines the ripe but overlooked black metal culture of the 80s and 90s to great effect. For anyone for who considers Mayhem a (not-so) guilty pleasure this is a must read. The same goes for readers who appreciate a good anti-hero but would love a female one, as Cass Neary is what you've been waiting for. It has a bit of Chuck Palahnuik vibe (think Diary), and is a great follow up to the excellent Generation Loss. Although I defini...

I don't know when I became such a fan of Elizabeth Hand. The first book I ever read by her was Glimmering, which sat on my shelf for quite a while. But ever since I read it, I've collected no small number of her work. An amazing wordsmith, it makes her pieces a joy to read. One of the things that I've loved through all her work is the importance of art. Art plays a large role in my own work, so it's not strange for me to make the connection. However, photography is an area I don't know much abou...

I've read Elizabeth Hand before, and especially loved "Waking the Moon" (that book is 20 years old now, how did that happen?). But I've never read her mystery-thrillers. I decided to pick up this book because of an upcoming trip to Iceland, which is featured. It's the second in a series. I haven't read the first, but had no problem getting into this one. I'm not sure anyone would want to visit the Iceland of Cass Neary's experience. For that matter, most of her world isn't exactly rainbows and f...