A theater critic is the victim of very bad reviews in thriller 'Here In the Dark'

Alexis Soloski isn't messing around with the "write what you know" dictum: The heroine of the New York theater critic's mystery novel is a New York theater critic.

I suspect you need to be at least a little interested in New York theater to go for "Here In the Dark," in which a graduate student is murdered shortly after he interviews critic Vivian Parry. Soon, she's trying to figure out who killed him and who's leaving her notes warning her to leave it alone — assisted by a friend who's an actor, a new lover who's a theater technician and another new lover who's a cop.

It's a sturdy premise, with echoes of a movie I won't name because it would give away too much. Soloski's plotting is brisk and her writing is hilarious. There are four funny lines in the first paragraph of the first chapter alone. That chapter also introduces the sardonic narrative voice of Vivian, who — as readers of theater critics probably suspect is true but Soloski undoubtedly knows is not — gets a bang out of eviscerating shows that don't measure up.

The worry, in "Here in the Dark," is that someone will get a bang out of eviscerating Vivian, who goes undercover to try to prevent that from happening (conveniently, she was an actor before she was a critic).

Soloski has a good ear for dialogue, with distinctive voices for most of the suspects and pals in Vivian's orbit. The best of the lot is her brash friend Justine, an actor who keeps Vivian supplied with a steady supply of illicit meds.

Those meds are the one major misstep in "Here In the Dark." Like "The Girl on the Train," "The Woman in the Window" and too many other female protagonists of thrillers, Vivian is an unreliable narrator because she's impaired by booze and pills. As Vivian might write about yet another jukebox musical she has to evaluate: We've been there, done that and been bored by the T-shirt.

Here In the Dark

By: Alexis Soloski.

Publisher: Flatiron, 248 pages, $27.99.

Event: Reading and conversation, 7 p.m. Jan. 18, 2024, Magers & Quinn, Mpls.