The plot of Strange Pictures fits together like an ideal mystery novel puzzle, but what really impressed me wasn’t the clever detailing or narrative revelations but the broader pacing and structure. Opening with a short lecture by a psychologist as she deciphers a series of early childhood drawings tees up pictures (strange pictures, wink) as being vital to the story. 

Chapter One then opens on some college kids piecing together a mystery from an abandoned blog, I felt safe from the immediacy of danger but also delightfully intrigued by what they were trying to uncover. And when each of the following chapters shifted to a different point of view, I was completely unbalanced. I did not recognize the faint tethers that tie each chapter to the wider story until each section was complete. The power of Strange Pictures is in my belief that the same story told in a different order would not work as well

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