Romantic Times

From the April '08 issue. Many thanks to Liz.

And here is the review from the same issue. (The summary is the best I've read yet):

Thriller
6 Sick Hipsters
Rayo Casablanca
***

Casablanca refashions the serial killer mystery amid a strange amalgam of slacker/hipster nightclubbers. The wacked-out violence and grotesquely flawed characters aren’t for everyone, but the mystery works even if the motive is convoluted and hard to parse. At the very least, Casablanca is a unique flavor on the mystery scene.

Summary: After the grisly murders of three high-profile hipsters in Brooklyn, a loosely connected group of friends deduce that a serial killer is targeting them for extinction. Armed with not much more than their wits and plenty of attitude, Harrison, a paleontologist who secretly writes scientific porn, and Beth, a subversive knitter whose eyesight is fading, lead the charge to track down the monstrous Doctor Jeep, who seems to be killing urban techno youths. A vicious war begins, and a bizarre counterculture movement appears to be at the heart of a deadly mission to counteract rampant consumerism. (KENSINGTON, Apr., 288 pp., $15.00)

Tara Gelsomino