This book comes with a collection of “tangible items” and metadata to complement and expand the novel’s narrative. The items have extremely high production value and are really cool to have while reading the book—but they also are, each of them, little tangent factories. I’m pretty sure Personal Effects: Dark Art is the first novel in which one can open up the physical volume and spend 45 minutes immersed in its narrative… without turning a single page. AWESOME!

The novel itself is great: fun, frightening and not without a certain charm. The narrator is extremely likeable and sympathetic, the villain/victim disturbing and moving at the same time.

I’m not quite halfway through at this point and am just seeing where author J.C. Hutchins is fixing to ramp up the horror. Up to this point it has been a perfectly fine chronicle of an art therapist struggling to help an accused murderer to help himself. Looking forward to seeing how all of this comes together!