Review | The Night Market by Jonathan Moore

Ross Carver is at a crime scene in a luxury home. He and his partner find a dead body covered by an unknown substance. Before they can identify the substance, they were removed from the premises by FBI agents. When Carver wakes up, he’s at home in bed and his neighbour, Mia, is reading to him. He doesn’t remember being taken home, or the events in the last few days.

At work, his absence is explained away as him being sick. But Mia says differently, and he has to figure out if he could trust her. As he digs into the events of his lost days, he finds himself tangled in a web much bigger than he could ever predict.

Do you ever think there’s maybe something that’s gone wrong with the world?

First of all, I love the setting of The Night Market. It’s a dystopian noir that feels familiar, but fresh and slightly perturbing. It lays down the idea of a society obsessed with advertisements where people stand drooling watching disposable screens (not that far-fetched from how we live now!). The characters are used to this world so while they don’t find anything strange, it’s a trip to read about it. The gap between the rich and the poor is starkly obvious. There is a hint of future societal collapse that feels foreboding. While there are murders and gangs and secret societies, there is also a cloud of dark technology hanging over these characters’ lives.

When Carver, the main character, sets out to investigate what happened to him, there is an element of suspense to the proceedings. He doesn’t know who to trust and neither do we. I kept waiting for something terrible to happen! Despite that, I was drawn into Carver and Mia’s relationship and believed their connection with each other.

Unfortunately, I thought the reveal of the mystery doesn’t live up to its buildup. I liked the criminal aspect of the mystery more than the conspiracy because it ended up getting too deep into science-fiction territory for my taste. I also couldn’t buy into the villain’s motivations. I’m a fan of the ending though, because it is open to our interpretation – for it to be happy or sad. The Night Market is perfect if you’re looking for a thriller that veers outside the box.