Kate’s Review: “Murder Road”

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Book: “Murder Road” by Simone St. James

Publishing Info: Berkley, March 2024

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley.

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: A young couple find themselves haunted by a string of gruesome murders committed along an old deserted road in this terrifying new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Cold Cases .

July 1995. April and Eddie have taken a wrong turn. They’re looking for the small resort town where they plan to spend their honeymoon. When they spot what appears to a lone hitchhiker along the deserted road, they stop to help. But not long after the hitchiker gets into their car, they see the blood seeping from her jacket and a truck barreling down Atticus Line after them.

When the hitchhiker dies at the local hospital, April and Eddie find themselves in the crosshairs of the Coldlake Falls police. Unexplained murders have been happening along Atticus Line for years and the cops finally have two witnesses who easily become their only suspects. As April and Eddie start to dig into the history of the town and that horrible stretch of road to clear their names, they soon learn that there is something supernatural at work, something that could not only tear the town and its dark secrets apart, but take April and Eddie down with it all.

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this book!

I’ve been reading and reviewing thrillers from Simone St. James since this blog was founded eight years ago, and my track record with her has been pretty stellar. I really enjoyed “The Sundown Motel”, “The Book of Cold Cases”, and “The Broken Girls”, and when I saw that she had a new book called “Murder Road” coming out I KNEW that I had to read it. The description was tantalizing, as a married couple stumbling upon murders and urban legends on a stretch of lonely road is SO up my alley, and my expectations were pretty high given my enjoyment of her past stories. So imagine my shock when “Murder Road”, after being so promising, was a bit of a disappointment.

But first the good stuff. Character wise, “Murder Road” had some standouts. The first and most obvious is our protagonist April, who is on the way to her honeymoon with new husband Eddie when they run into trouble in a small Michigan town when a injured hitchhiker they try to help ends up dying, and the local police set their eyes on them as suspects. April and Eddie soon learn that many people have died on that same stretch of road, and take it upon themselves to clear their names and solve the mystery of The Lost Girl, an urban legend of a ghostly hitchhiker who may have malevolent intent. April is telling this story through a first person perspective, and we know from the jump that she is trying to start over and leave a dark and mysterious past behind her. I liked slowly getting to know her and seeing her try to solve this, if only so she and Eddie can try and go back to the anonymity she needs to survive and let go. There were also some people in the town that I greatly enjoyed, whether it’s the no nonsense Rose, who takes April and Eddie in and has a combative and complicated history with the police that are hounding her boarders, or the Snell sisters, two teenage amateur sleuths that are plucky and weird Nancy Drew wannabes.

But I think that what hindered it for me, ultimately, was that the supernatural aspects and the suspense never really took off. I love the premise of a cursed stretch of road that has numerous strange deaths associated with it, and I really love the urban legend of a vengeful ghost picking off hitchhikers that are unlucky enough to spot her. But I feel like we didn’t REALLY get a good expanded deep dive into what was going on with this ghost for a LONG time, and by the time we did it started to feel kind of rushed, with lots of twists and reveals stuffed in and very few of which made me go ‘ah, yes, I can see how we got from point A to point B with these reveals’. I’m being vague because I don’t want to spoil it, but I definitely felt like I needed more explanation as to what was going on, and I needed there to be more build up to the solution to the mystery because when we got there it fell flat. Even incongruous at times. And as I said, it felt rushed at the end, but at the same time there was a good chunk of the story where I felt like it was spinning its wheels a bit. And while St. James is usually really good about holding cards to her vest, one of the big surprises was telegraphed SUPER early, and took the wind out of those sails almost immediately.

I was sad that this newest Simone St. James novel didn’t connect for me. “Murder Road” had a strong main character and some fun supporting ones, but the thrills and chills fell flat.

Rating 5: This was a surprising miss from an author I usually really enjoy.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Murder Road” is included in the Goodreads article “Reader’s Most Anticipated Mysteries & Thrillers 2024”.