Beukes, who gained recognition for the literary science-fiction noir Zoo City, is a South African writer fostering the gradual recognition that science fiction and literary fiction can be at least neighbors if not actual housemates. The Shining Girls offers the reader a time-traveling serial killer stalking his victims through Chicago from the Great Depression to the early 90s. Via the properties of a mysterious house which seemingly exists outside of time, Harper Curtis, the novel’s antagonist, is able to pass between eras freely.