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Book: “Murder Land” by Carlyn Greenwald
Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Fire, May 2025
Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.
Where You Can Get That Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound
Book Description: Murder Land opens tonight. Not everyone will survive. Buckle up for a thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat, perfect for fans of Karen McManus and Holly Jackson.
Seventeen-year-old Billie feels like she is on top of the world. She gets to spend the summer with her best friend, sparks are flying with her crush, and she has received a promotion to ride operator for one of the most buzzworthy new attractions in the theme park she works at. But the first night on the new job takes a dark turn when her creepy coworker mysteriously dies…on her ride, when she isn’t authorized to be running it.
At first, it seems like he died by heart attack, but by the time she returns to the body with help, it looks like a broken neck. Had she just imagined him sitting upright a few minutes ago? It’s as if someone is trying to pin his death on her, and she has one night to figure out who is really responsible before she is blamed.
Billie recruits the help of her friends to sneak around the park after-hours and search for the truth. But as the night stretches on and more people wind up dead, Billie realizes she may not make it out of Murder Land alive. And her friends may know more than they’re letting on.
Review: Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire for sending me an eARC via NetGalley!
Outside of Disney World, I am not REALLY a fan of theme parks. We have a couple here in Minnesota, there’s Valley Fair a bit south of the cities, and the Mall of America has Nickelodeon Universe, which my five year old loves and I only tolerate for her sake (also, here’s some lore: it USED to be called Camp Snoopy and was Peanuts themed, but alas, those days are long over). But even though I don’t really like theme or amusement parks, I do love the idea of a horror or thriller novel set in one. It just opens up so many different opportunities for suspense and horror. Because of this I was definitely interested in checking out “Murder Land” by Carlyn Greenwald, a new YA thriller that has a murderous night at a popular theme park as its premise. Nickelodeon Universe could NEVER. Plus I really like that cover. It just screams Santa Cruz Boardwalk by way of “The Lost Boys”.
But promising premise and my own dorky associations aside, I am sorry to say that, for me, an old hat connoisseur of the thriller genre, “Murder Land” was a bit of a let down.
But first, the good. As I mentioned above, the premise and potential of this story is off the charts for me. There is a precedent in thrillers and horror stories for theme parks or carnivals or festivals to be unique and unsettling settings, and I, for one, wouldn’t be opposed to more of it. And that translates over to “Murder Land”, with clear homages to places like Knotts Berry Farm. And I always love a theme of greedy corporations hoping to hide scandals for profit purposes, and the conspiracies that can come to fruition because of it. And also, as a YA thriller, I could see this being a solid introduction to the thriller genre, as there is definitely a plotted out mystery that does feel planned and thought out. I also love a device that uses epistolary or ‘found footage’, so the way that we have transcripts from a website/channel that is all about the history of CaliforniaLand and references ‘urban exploration’ along with it. That all worked for me.
But, on the flip side, I am definitely not the target audience for this book, and I have read so many thrillers over the years, that nothing about “Murder Land” really stood out to me despite all of the potential that it had. I thought that our main characters, rounded out by protagonist Billie and her friend group Grace, Leon, and Sawyer, were pretty cookie cutter in their personalities and their relationships with each other. We have a bit of a love quadrangle going on, which I can usually grin and bear if it’s basically sidelined, but within this story, taking place in ONE night with lots of death and murder and tragedy at hand, it felt clunky and out of place. I also felt that the way that the reveals were done, outside of a few in the transcripts, didn’t have that much weight. I think this is probably due to the fact that I wasn’t as invested in the story because I wasn’t as invested in the characters, but I DO feel like even if I don’t connect with any characters in a thriller I can still be, well, thrilled. And I wasn’t held in much suspense as this story was going. I do think that it’s very possible (maybe even probable) that if I was a teen reading this it would have worked better, but for this forty year old, it just didn’t click.
Overall I think that this didn’t work for me because I’m not the audience it caters to. “Murder Land” was a disappointment for me, but it probably won’t be for everyone!
Rating 6: This is a solid thriller for the age group it is intended for, but seasoned thriller fans in general may be a little underwhelmed.
Reader’s Advisory:
“Murder Land” is included on the Goodreads list “YA Releases of May 2025”.
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