Booktok 📚 discussion

Hey BookTok lovers
I recently found two detective thrillers that don’t just chase mysteries — they break you open along the way. Both are written with that slow-burn intensity I love: foggy cities, buried pasts, and characters who are too broken to admit it.

Material Drug Dreams
Material, Drugs, Dreams by K.M. Drayven
A detective story set in early ’90s London gritty, sharp, and laced with dark academia vibes.
Kai Starling isn’t just solving a case he’s digging through buried memories, silent power plays, and a war of intellect against a man too perfect to be trusted: Geltorn Brith Earl.
It’s about old money, forbidden knowledge, and the kind of dreams that leave marks. Every page feels like a cold breath on your neck.
For readers who want intellect with atmosphere — and truth with scars.

UNLESS STORY: Detective Kai Starling
Unless Story by K. Mondal
A more cinematic detective thriller filled with emotional intensity and unexpected betrayals.
Again, we follow Kai Starling, but this time with his wife Loanna and their friend Rehaan as they face a conspiracy stretching from the streets of London to the edge of what they know.
It’s about what happens when solving the mystery means losing yourself in the process. And what if the truth hurts more than the lie ever could
The detective work is Both books are already listed in WorldCat, so if you’re a library regular or a fan of rare detective fiction that’s more psychological than procedural, I highly recommend checking them out.

Anyone else here love detective stories that blur the line between truth and memory? I’d love similar recs.
sharp but the emotional fallout? Brutal.

“Truth doesn’t always arrive with answers — sometimes, it arrives with silence.”
“He looked at the city like it owed him something, but he couldn’t remember what.”