by Arvind Ethan David

NOTE: I received a free preliminary, and likely unedited copy of this book from Netgalley for the purposes of providing an honest, unbiased review of the material. Thank you to all involved.

Inspired by the classic 1890 novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Gray by Arvind Ethan David takes queues from many revenge thrillers and brings them into the modern age by touching on many social topics such as #metoo and Black Lives Matter. In many ways, the story (at least with book one) is one part Saw, and one part The Count of Monte Christo in many ways. We don’t know much about Ms. Dorian Gray in the first volume, but we can assume she was sexually assaulted by a group of powerful men that ultimately became powerful men in various government and political positions. She has some sort of network that is collecting these men and getting revenge on them one by one. A couple of detectives are assigned to the case, but ultimately appear to have more in common with Gray than the powerful men they work for.

“A contemporary reimaging of the classic Oscar Wilde novel, “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” Gray is a supernatural revenge thriller about an alluring but violent woman, Dorian Gray, who seeks vengeance on a cabal of powerful men who wronged her years ago; and of the straight-laced African American detective with a past of his own, who is tasked with stopping her.”

While the story, so far, is fairly removed from the original novel the book is inspired by, its an interesting story full of thrills and shocking ends to some very despicable men. I have a feeling that we’ll learn more about Ms. Gray in book two, and what exactly happened to her that caused her to apparently dabble in some sort of magic (as with the original, she hasn’t aged for years) and set her plan in motion. With the introduction of an artist from her school towards the end of the book, I’m assuming the infamous painting itself comes into play at some point.

This book is very well done, and held my attention. Despite being a book about social issues, it’s not as “preachy” as one would assume it would be. Rather than trying to prove to the reader that whatever these men have done was wrong, Gray does away with the subtleties and just gets down to business. As you can surmise from my description above, this book could very well have triggers for people that don’t want to read such an intense story, so be warned.