Tag: Thriller

Kate’s Review: “We Did Nothing Wrong”

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Book: “We Did Nothing Wrong” by Hannah Jayne

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Fire, December 2024

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher.

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

Book Description: Lia thought of the dark night, of the broken street light.

Had Diana gone out to meet her? Had she been waiting for her, alone in the park? Or had someone been waiting for Diana?

Lia and Diana are the It girls of Empire Hill High. Their lives are perfect….until Diana disappears and the rumors start flying. Everyone thinks Diana is a runaway, including the police. Lia is secretly convinced it’s all a prank. Then she finds a crushed red rose tied with a candy-cane ribbon where Diana went missing. And next to it, a  YOU. It’s the same ribbon Lia’s received on gifts from a “secret admirer.” Did someone come for Diana that night? And will Lia be next?

Review: Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire for sending me an ARC of this novel!

It had admittedly been a little bit of a dry spell for YA thrillers before the past couple of weeks, but with “Heart-Shaped Lies” being spotlighted last week I broke that streak, and now I follow that up with “We Did Nothing Wrong” by Hannah Jayne. If the last YA thriller was a soapy murder mystery, this one is solidly missing person, a sub-genre I enjoy very much. So when I read the description for this one with a missing girl at its heart and a left behind best friend who is frantic (and feeling a little guilty), I was very eager to check it out. And it had some mixed results.

Firstly, however: the good. I will say that by the time we were getting to the last third of the book, the pace really picked up, the red herrings and reveals were flying, and I was quickly charging through because I was so interested in seeing how it was all going to shake out. I’d keep thinking “Diana has to be alive, right?” only for a few minutes later to think “No, Diana’s dead, that has to be it”, and then keep flip flopping as Lia keeps digging in and finding more clues. I liked that Lia was also what I would consider a ‘more realistic’ teen detective, as she has kind of been thrust into it out of desperation for Diana’s sake AND her own guilt about how their relationship had been as of late (namely, cheating with Diana’s boyfriend Eli), and therefore is more harried and chaotic as opposed to calculating and methodical. And finally, I also appreciated how Jayne tackled the role that law enforcement was playing in this story, as they go through the motions looking for Diana, but aren’t REALLY trying too hard, convinced that she’s a runaway and therefore not a priority. It’s a sadly common narrative in real life abduction cases sometimes, and having a story with a not necessarily malevolent investigative team, but certainly an inept and lazy one, was an interesting choice for this book to make, and it was one that worked for me.

But unfortunately, the pacing was a bit off in this book, with a lot of slow but not super engaging build up dominating for a little too long for me. I thought that the book was spinning its wheels for awhile, with a lot of it being Lia dealing with her guilt about her friendship with Diana growing distant, and her poor decision to sort of pursue Eli behind Diana’s back. We get some background throughout of their complicated relationship, one that certainly felt genuine (because as someone who DID have a very complicated relationship with one of my best gal pals in high school it was very relatable). But the ruminating and angsting on Lia’s part was a bit repetitive, and by the time we had finally gotten to the uptick in action and a very satisfying finale I felt that it was a little late getting there.

All in all “We Did Nothing Wrong” was pretty run of the mill. When it finally got going I was entertained, but I think we needed to get there sooner.

Rating 6: Once the pace picked up near the end I became invested, but it took a bit to get there.

Reader’s Advisory:

“We Did Nothing Wrong” isn’t on any Goodreads lists as of now, but it would fit in on the Goodreads shelf “Missing Girls Books”.

Kate’s Review: “Heart-Shaped Lies”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Heart-Shaped Lies” by Elizabeth Agyemang

Publishing Info: Delacorte Press, November 2024

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

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

Book Description: John Tucker Must Die meets A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder in this tongue-in-cheek thriller about three feuding exes of a social media prank star who are forced to work together to solve the mystery of his death when his deactivated account resurfaces online with claims that one of them murdered him.

Kiara, Priscilla, and Nevaeh have nothing in common—except they just found out that they’re all dating Tommy Harding, the internet’s most famous teen prank star.

KIARA is the girlfriend who the cameras know and love, the academic star who Tommy parades around in public to keep his image in check.

PRISCILLA is Tommy’s co-star. As a beauty influencer and an accomplice to Tommy’s notorious antics, she’s always known that the two of them could be the Internet’s power couple—if only he would confess to his girlfriend what really goes on during their ‘rehearsals’.

And NEVAEH is the good girl, the pastor’s daughter who’d never dream of dating a boy who’s already taken.

When a viral post from Tommy’s social media account exposes his cheating ways during their high school class trip to Florida’s biggest theme park, the girls are crushed—and furious. Tommy claims his account was hacked. Now, Kiara, Priscilla, and Nevaeh want him out of their lives. Forever. After all, Tommy doesn’t just hold their hearts—he holds their secrets, too. But when Tommy’s body is found the next morning, their so-called wish becomes a twisted reality. Because Tommy may be gone, but the internet is forever. And the girls are about to go from strangers to suspects….

Review: Thank you to Elizabeth Agyemang for sending me an eARC of this novel!

I’m going to date myself a bit here, but as an Elder Millennial I kind of (very luckily) missed the bridge from the social media of my young adulthood (College only Facebook, Livejournal) to what we have today (TikTok, YouTube), and all the now defunct stuff in between (Vine!). So I haven’t really gotten sucked into YouTube personalities and influencers and the power that they can have over their audience and their narrative, sometimes enabling the very worst of people and giving them a lot of money. One that I think about a lot are the Paul Brothers, who got started on Vine doing provocative videos, moved to YouTube, and now have a HUGE cash cow of an audience and have made careers for themselves as a pro wrestler and a boxer, while being really TERRIBLE people (the list of their bullshit is endless). I really don’t get it, but hey, they’re worth millions so what the hell do I know? I kept thinking about the Paul Brothers as I read Elizabeth Agyemang’s new YA thriller “Heart-Shaped Lies” in which a wildly popular social media prank star is murdered, and his three lady friends are all suspects. Because man, Tommy Harding is the absolute WORST, and reading about his murder and the fallout proved to be VERY entertaining.

As a mystery thriller, I found this book to be well crafted and engaging. We have three perspectives that we are getting our information from, all three of them being teenage girls who have been involved with the narcissistic social media prank king Tommy Harding. The first is Kiara, Tommy’s official girlfriend who is driven, clever, and the perfect girlfriend to counter balance his ‘boys will be boys’ image. The second is Priscilla, a wannabe beauty influencer who is Tommy’s on camera collaborator, who he has been having an affair with off screen. And the third is Neveah, a somewhat sheltered girl who is has been having a long distance and text/picture relationship with Tommy and thinks it’s true love. They all are betrayed by Tommy in one way or another, and they all have reasons to possibly want him dead after his account is hacked and various damning things about each of them are leaked. I really liked how Agyemang lets us get into each of their heads while also keeping a bit of plausibility that any of them COULD have been the killer. It’s a device that can be hard to juggle, especially with multiple characters, but in this case their perspectives and the other clues that we get as the story goes on through their eyes separately made for a solid mystery at the sum of its parts, and I was left guessing about who the perpetrator could be up until the reveal!

And on top of the well thought out mystery that kept me guessing, I really do love a soapy story, especially in a thriller, and ESPECIALLY if it makes the characters more complicated. And man was the soap really bubbling in this book, which was a plus to be sure. You have a love quadrangle (but the center of the triangle is TERRIBLE so you don’t really have to pick a ‘team’), you have sneaky teenagers doing sneaky things, you have enemies turned allies, you have requited love and secrets and oh so much more! I really enjoyed the ongoing drama and tension going on between Kiara, Priscilla, and Neveah as they are trying to clear their names but don’t REALLY know if they can trust each other. And I enjoyed the way that I could just want to slap some of the characters for their choices and actions and yet was fully able to understand each of them to a degree (at least of the three main ladies. There’s no redemption for Tommy, and while he was two dimensional in some ways I’m going to allow it because as mentioned about, the Paul Brothers-ness of it all made it easy to hate him and is obviously realistic). I really love soap and I’ve been missing it lately, so this one really hit all the right notes for me.

All in all, I really enjoyed “Heart-Shaped Lies”. It had been awhile since I had scratched the particular itch of sudsy thrillers, and this gave me everything I needed and more in that department.

Rating 8: A compelling mystery, some nice soapy elements, and some interesting characters made this a fun thriller and a wild ride!

Reader’s Advisory:

“Heart-Shaped Lies” is included on the Goodreads list “YA Novels of 2024”.

Ripley’s Reviews: “Ripley’s Game”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

“Ripley’s Reviews” is an ongoing series where I will review every book in Patricia Highsmith’s “Ripley” Series, as well as multiple screen adaptations of the novels. I will post my reviews on the first Thursday of the month, and delve into the twisted mind of one Tom Ripley and all the various interpretations that he has come to life within. Up next is the third book in the series, “Ripley’s Game”.

Book: “Ripley’s Game” by Patricia Highsmith

Publishing Info: Random House, March 1974

Where Did I Get This Book: The library!

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

Book Description: Living on his posh French estate with his elegant heiress wife, Tom Ripley, on the cusp of middle age, is no longer the striving comer of The Talented Mr. Ripley. Having accrued considerable wealth through a long career of crime—forgery, extortion, serial murder—Ripley still finds his appetite unquenched and longs to get back in the game.

In Ripley’s Game, first published in 1974, Patricia Highsmith’s classic chameleon relishes the opportunity to simultaneously repay an insult and help a friend commit a crime—and escape the doldrums of his idyllic retirement. This third novel in Highsmith’s series is one of her most psychologically nuanced—particularly memorable for its dark, absurd humor—and was hailed by critics for its ability to manipulate the tropes of the genre. With the creation of Ripley, one of literature’s most seductive sociopaths, Highsmith anticipated the likes of Norman Bates and Hannibal Lecter years before their appearance.

Review: We took a break last month from my “Ripley’s Reviews” Series due to Horrorpalooza (though you got TWO in September), but we are now back to this project and Tom Ripley continues to be loathsome and a literary legend. I was not familiar with the premise of “Ripley’s Game” before I started researching this series, and when I did get to this title I didn’t really know what to expect. I mean, outside of Ripley being the worst. And the worst he was. And it may be getting a LITTLE hard to handle for me.

Highsmith does breathe some new life into her Ripley stories with this third entry, as not only are we now delving somewhat into a Mafia thriller, but we also have two narratives we are following this time around. The first is, of course, that of Tom Ripley, who is still living his best life on his French estate with his vapid wife and all his ill gotten wares. He is approached to be a hitman for an acquaintance, but has no interest and instead suggests his friend seek out a man named Jonathan Trevanny, a lower class man with cancer, as he only ha a few months to live, surely, and may want the money to support his wife and child after he passes. Thing is, Trevanny doesn’t only have months to live, but the rumors make him think that perhaps he IS dying faster, and decides to take on the hits to keep his family supported. But Ripley can’t help himself, and inserts himself into Trevanny’s life further, and with that he’s up to his old tricks. I liked that we got to get into Trevanny’s head in this one, as it really showed his motivations and his anxiety and panic as he and Ripley are engulfed into Mafia dealings and the dangers that come with that. It was certainly interesting going in that direction as well, as you kind of wonder if Ripley may be biting off more than he can chew (but then we know he isn’t; we still have a couple books left). Also, this is another Ripley story that feels VERY queer coded, what with Tom once again obsessing over another man and inserting himself into his life. I know Highsmith had a lot of self loathing regarding her sexuality, and it’s interesting knowing that AND seeing Tom have these moments and layers.

But something that I did notice this time around is that I am starting to be a bit put off by Ripley and the things that he is doing. And I don’t mean that in a pearl clutching kind of way, after all this is Tom Ripley we are talking about here. It’s not like I think that he’s just ‘misunderstood’ or whatever. But I think that this time around, unlike in the two previous books, mostly the first book, Ripley seems to be absolutely destroying the life of Trevanny for no other reason than pettiness and a misplaced obsession. It’s one thing if Ripley is going in and wreaking havoc on the likes of the Greenleaf family, in that even though I’m not letting him off the hook for Dickie’s murder, at least there is some villainy of the selfish millionaire class that makes it feel more ‘fun’ in a way. Kind like in the “You” books where Joe Goldberg is a villainous murderer and stalker, but the people he is up against are all so unlikable and vile in their own ways that it’s more satirical and entertaining (while still making the various murders of the women he’s obsessed with just horrifying). In this book Ripley is gaslighting and setting up a lower class picture framer WITH CANCER to commit murders and drive him to the point of insanity all because he insulted him at a party once, and we don’t REALLY get the sense that Highsmith was unpacking the parallels of having a fun villain while dealing with the horrible things he’s done. I’m kind of grappling with this and trying not to feel like a hypocrite, and maybe that’s a feeling I have to own and Highsmith had the last laugh here. But this one felt a bit more misery filled than the previous two books, and as such I didn’t enjoy it as much.

We will see where we get with the next in the series, “The Boy Who Followed Ripley”. I don’t think that the bloom is off the rose yet, and I WILL say that I will be VERY interested to tackle a film adaptation of this one down the line.

Rating 6: I was quite in favor of two perspective narrative, but this was Ripley at perhaps his most vile, and the humor and satire didn’t balance it out as much for me this time.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Ripley’s Game” is included on the Goodreads list “The Vilest Man in Fiction”.

Kate’s Review: “This Girl’s A Killer”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “This Girl’s a Killer” by Emma C. Wells

Publishing Info: Poisoned Pen Press, September 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: Meet Cordelia Black. Cordelia loves exactly three things: her chosen family composed of her best friend Diane and her goddaughter; her hairdresser (worth every penny plus tip); and killing bad men.

By day she’s a successful pharmaceutical rep with a pristine reputation and a designer wardrobe. By night she’s culling South Louisiana of unscrupulous men—monsters who always seem to evade justice, until they meet her. It’s a complicated yet fulfilling life that requires complete and total control at all times. But when the evening news starts throwing around the words “serial killer,” pressure heightens for her in the South, and it’s only exacerbated when Diane starts dating a man Cordelia isn’t sure is a good person—someone who might unravel everything Cordelia has worked for. Soon Cordelia’s world spirals, and she loses her grip on those tightly held threads that keep her safe.

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

Horrorpalooza is over, and now I start to work back towards the books that I read before October that didn’t fit a horror theme to fit within that month’s review schematics. We had a cartel thriller on Saturday, and now we get back to good old fashioned women’s centric thrillers with Emma C. Wells’s novel “This Girl’s a Killer”. This has been on my list for awhile now, and now the time has finally arrived. With admittedly mixed results.

There were definitely things that did work, however. Most obviously to me is that I do love stories like this, with sarcastic and quippy morally grey narrators doing pretty terrible things but for fairly understandable reasons. I enjoy the idea of a pharma rep named Cordelia (I just kept thinking of Cordelia Chase from “Buffy”) being professional and put together by day, and then murdering abusive and violent men by night after the legal system fails to do anything about them. I enjoyed the story arc at hand, with her having an ‘oh shit’ moment when finding out that her company is recalling the drug she uses for her schemes (as it works SO WELL to knock men out you see), and then things slowly falling more and more out of control. Partially because she kind of starts dating a cop, partially because she really hates her best friend Diane’s new boyfriend. The thriller aspects are more about how and whether she will get away with her crimes, but it’s also a little tongue in cheek which gives it a bit of zip.

But on the flip side, it isn’t really anything that I haven’t seen before in the women’s centric poppy serial killer tale. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as I did find this book to be a very quick read and an entertaining one at that. After all, who doesn’t like to read about terrible predatory men getting justice doled out from a pissed off woman with a serial killing habit to feed? The problem is that Cordelia as a protagonist is trying to be “Promising Young Woman” vis a vis “Dexter”, but I didn’t feel like she had the complexities to back it up and is instead a bit of a caricature without the depth I was hoping for. Girlboss serial killer who loves her bestie and her high fashion labels and aesthetic is fine, but I was really hoping that she’d be a bit more interesting. I have similar criticisms for the supporting characters, with said bestie Diane being a little on the saccharine side and her daughter Samantha being precocious as hell bordering on a little unbelievable. As an escapist bloody romp this works, but I think that had the characters been stronger it really could have knocked it out of the park, and it didn’t quite get there.

It’s kind of strange to refer to a story about a serial killer in designer clothes as ‘cozy’ reading, but if you like thrillers you will probably feel that same vibe. Overall “This Girl’s a Killer” is pretty fluffy thriller fun that doesn’t take itself super seriously. I can dig that vibe this time of year.

Rating 6: Fun for what it is, but none of the characters moved outside of static two dimensional personalities and the story suffered for it.

Reader’s Advisory:

“This Girl’s a Killer” is included on the Goodreads list “Best Serial Killer Books”.

Kate’s Review: “All Our Wars”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “All Our Wars” by Stephanie Vasquez

Publishing Info: SparkPress, October 2024

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher.

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

Book Description: For fans of Katie Gutierrez’s More Than You’ll Ever Know and Netflix’s Narcos comes a high-stakes thriller about the daughter of a high-ranking Mexican cartel leader dragged back to the life she fought hard to escape.

Twelve years have passed since Sofia De Luna’s mother was murdered. Sofia now leads a quiet life, far from the cartel violence she was raised amidst. But when her narco father’s retirement catapults her to head of the family, that peaceful existence is upended.

Unhappy with this changeover of power, Sofia’s brothers and cousins are wary of her desire to legitimize the family and her insistent questions about her mother’s mysterious death. Meanwhile, in Mexico’s uncertain political climate, Andres Herrera, the ex-sicario accused of Sofia’s mother’s murder, sees the opportunity for his exit from the drug business. He just needs Sofia, his first love, to uphold the truce between the cartels before the war brewing at the border trickles down to Mexico City, marring the upcoming election.

After a chance meeting with a disenfranchised DEA agent reveals the true depths the Torres will go to keep their power, Sofia decides she must stop the war her cousins have put in motion. But if she sacrifices her family for the dream of peace, will she meet the same fate as her mother?

Review: Thank you to SparkPress for sending me an ARC of this novel!

My organized crime fiction experience is pretty limited to mafia movies like “The Godfather” and lots of the Scorsese catalog (“Goodfellas” is a favorite movie of mine, Terror Tuesday people and I have made it a Christmas tradition to watch it and eat lasagna). I’m not really someone who reads a lot of organized crime stuff, and I can’t think of any off the top of my head. But I’m always game to try new sub genres, so when “All Our Wars” by Stephanie Vasquez ended up in the inbox I felt that it was a sign that it was time to try out an organized crime thriller.

The intrigue, politicking, and tension regarding a power vacuum in a cartel family in this book made for a suspenseful read. Sofia is the daughter of a powerful cartel boss in Mexico, who left her family behind after her mother Maria was murdered and her close friend/lover Andres, now an ex-sicario, was accused of the murder but never taken to task for it. When she comes to visit at her father’s behest, she is told that she is next in line to run the business, just in time for her father to be killed under murky circumstances. All of this alone is interesting from the jump because I liked seeing the way that Sofia has to balance her own desires to stay out of it along with the familial pressure to stay, especially since it could cause a hostile takeover from her cousins should she make the wrong move, especially since the brewing power struggle between cartels could have a ripple effect all across Mexico. I really liked Sofia as a main character, and seeing her try to do the right thing while uncovering lots of disturbing truths regarding her family had me invested, especially as she starts to work alongside a DEA agent to try and get more answers and potentially put herself in even more danger. The ins and outs of the crime family and the violent realities of the business are engaging and interesting.

But what I enjoyed most about this book was the way that Vasquez presents a number of complicated and passionate familial and romantic relationships, and seeing how these relationships fit into the political and business interests of the cartel and the groups that benefit from them. Some of the more obvious ones are the relationships between Sofia and her former love Andres, or the romance between her brother Diego and his lover Yolotli, both of which I found to have an aching longing that gave them some complexity. But the one that I really liked was getting insight into the backstory of Sofia’s mother Maria and her relationship with Andres’s father Martin, and their doomed romance that was stopped before it could really start thanks to the fact Maria’s father betrothed her to Alberto, the heir apparent to a powerful cartel, who ends up being Sofia’s father. We see the way that Maria has her own desires but feels like she needs to push them away, and how her involvement in Alberto’s business starts to make her fear for herself and her children, and how she is still drawn to Martin in the years after their romance never quite happened. We get a lot of information about Maria, and we see how she has affected Sofia and her own values. I think Maria was my favorite character, and seeing her path juxtaposed with Sofia’s was a great choice.

“All Our Wars” was outside of my sub genre box, but I’m happy I took a chance on it. Maybe I should check out more of this sub genre.

Rating 7: A cartel thriller mixed with some tense family drama, “All Our Wars” was outside my usual reading sub genres but was a satisfying detour.

Reader’s Advisory:

“All Our Wars” isn’t included on any Goodreads lists as of now, but it would fit in on “Drug Cartel”.

Kate’s Review: “Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees” by Patrick Horvath

Publishing Info: IDW, September 2024

Where Did I Get This Book: I own it.

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

Book Description: Live, laugh, shed blood. Dexter meets Richard Scarry’s Busy, Busy Town in this twisted debut graphic novel!

Don’t. Murder. The locals.

This is small-town serial killer, upstanding citizen, and adorable brown bear Samantha Strong’s cardinal rule. After all, there’s a sea of perfectly ripe potential victims in the big city just beyond the forest, and when you’ve worked as hard as Sam to build a cozy life and a thriving business in a community surrounded by friendly fellow animal folk, warm decor, and the aroma of cedar trees and freshly baked apple pie…the last thing you want is to disturb the peace.

So you can imagine her indignation when one of Woodbrook’s own meets a grisly, mysterious demise—and you wouldn’t blame her for doing anything it takes to hunt down her rival before the town self-destructs and Sheriff Patterson starts (literally) barking up the wrong tree.

Cute critters aren’t immune to crime in this original graphic novel debut by writer-artist Patrick Horvath.

Review: When I was a child one of my favorite toys was a doll house for a set of “Maple Town” toys. For those who are not late Gen X/Elder Millenials, “Maple Town” was a Japanese anime for kids that ran on Nick Jr. I didn’t have cable as a kid, but my grandparents did, and every once in awhile I’d catch an episode here or there, but I LOVED my toy set that involved Patty and Ricky Rabbit and Bobby Bear even without consistent exposure to the show. I hadn’t thought about “Maple Town” in years….. And then I saw the cover and snippets from “Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees” by Patrick Horvath. And my IMMEDIATE thought was ‘oh my God it’s ‘Maple Town’ if ‘Maple Town’ was about a serial killer!’ Which obviously meant that I NEEDED TO READ IT.

Me to myself as I threw it in my online shopping cart (source).

As far as a mystery thriller goes with a shady as hell protagonist, “Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees” is top notch, with small town secrets and an anti-heroine who is whip smart and incredibly unnerving. We follow Samantha Bear a small town woman with a good job at the hardware store, some community connections, a love for her small town…. and a drive for brutally murdering unsuspecting people in the Big City that is far away and untouched by her happy life with her neighbors. But when someone starts killing people in Woodbrook, not only does it make Samantha cagey that someone will perhaps find her out during the investigation, it also just pisses her off that the town she loves and has spared is being targeted by a serial killer as sadistic as she is. So we follow Samantha as she conducts and investigation to help her community and keep her own nose clean. That’s just so fun in a nasty kind of way, and Horvath really sets up a well plotted mystery that is only enriched by Samantha, who is simultaneously the very worst but also SO easy to root for. I really enjoyed the pace of her investigation, and the cast of characters who act as suspects and victims made for some well done surprises, as well as well done shocks (and sad moments. A couple really great characters don’t fare so well!). And for the most part the reveals made sense while not feeling obvious, as well as some well placed red herrings that don’t feel cheap or frustrating. It really does read like a “Dexter” arc, as referenced in the description, with Samantha making a great dual detective/villainess.

The mystery itself is pretty well done, but what REALLY makes this book stand out (unsurprisingly so) is the fact that all of the characters are cutesy forest animals that have been drawn in adorable anthropomorphized fashions. It is such a strange dichotomy watching these delightful creatures doing pretty horrifying things, as this book is VIOLENT, but man it really adds to the appeal because it’s so creative. There are also some pretty fun meta bits, one in particular with Samantha being the woods and meeting a bear that is just like a bear a human would meet in the woods. So seeing this serial killer teddy bear-esque bear interact with a more realistic bear was just kinda fun. I MEAN HECK, the whole idea of these cute forest animals being in this situation in GENERAL is fun! What a concept! I brings an already solid serial killer thriller up a few levels.

And Horvath’s graphics are just…. My God. They are visceral and so cute and gory and charming and it’s a bizarre combination that works wonders.

(source: IDW)

“Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees” is one of the most unique graphic novel experiences I’ve had this year. If you like serial killer stories, and completely precious animals, this is sure to delight.

Rating 9: Twisted and unnerving but also super fun and somehow kind of adorable in its own ways, “Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees” is a bloody thriller with cutesy forest animals doing terrible things.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees” isn’t on any Goodreads lists as of now, but if you like the “Dexter” series or really any stories that follow a charismatic killer, this will probably click with you.

Ripley’s Reviews: “Ripley Under Ground”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

“Ripley’s Reviews” is an ongoing series where I will review every book in Patricia Highsmith’s “Ripley” Series, as well as multiple screen adaptations of the novels. I will post my reviews on the first Thursday of the month, and delve into the twisted mind of one Tom Ripley and all the various interpretations that he has come to life within. Up next is the second book in the series, “Ripley Under Ground”.

Book: “Ripley Under Ground” by Patricia Highsmith

Publishing Info: Doubleday, June 1970

Where Did I Get This Book: The library!

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

Book Description: It’s been six years since Ripley murdered Dickie Greenleaf and inherited his money. Now, in Ripley Under Ground (1970), he lives in a beautiful French villa, surrounded by a world-class art collection and married to a pharmaceutical heiress. All seems serene in Ripley’s world until a phone call from London shatters his peace. An art forgery scheme he set up a few years ago is threatening to unravel: a nosy American is asking questions and Ripley must go to London to put a stop to it. In this second Ripley novel, Patricia Highsmith offers a mesmerizing and disturbing tale in which Ripley will stop at nothing to preserve his tangle of lies.

Review: My next installment of my “Ripley’s Reviews” series is, admittedly, a little earlier than it would normally be, as this is the end of the month instead of the beginning of the month. But with Horrorpalooza starting next week I wanted to take on my thoughts on “Ripley Under Ground” now instead of waiting until November. Let’s keep this review series at a steady clip, shall we?

Set a few years after the events of “The Talented Mr. Ripley”, we rejoin Tom Ripley as he is basking in his affluent life that he has built with his inheritance from the Greenleaf family (whose heir apparent Dickie he murdered and stole his identity for a bit), as well as his marriage to pharmaceutical heiress Heloise. He’s been pulling an art forgery scheme to line his pockets as well, and it’s interesting seeing how he is still up to his old tricks and still benefitting from them. Highsmith took a different approach this this one, however, in that instead of climbing his social ladder through misdeeds, we now see Ripley trying to maintain his position at the top. He’s still smarmy and creepy, and it’s so interesting seeing many of those around him just not get that every aspect of his persona is fabricated (and those who DO kind of get it are just as culpable in their own ways). If you enjoyed the first book, there is a lot to like here, though I would argue that it’s not as compelling because we aren’t really getting anything new in terms of his character or his plot line. In this book Tom seems to be perfectly content living his life in rural France with the spoiled Heloise, but once one card from his house is pulled (when an art enthusiast correctly spots the forgeries), Tom can’t help but try and solidify his scheme, but manages only to make it worse. Soon he has a body, a paranoid accomplice, a simpering wife (who returns from her Greek vacation early) AND Dickie Greenleaf’s cousin Chris on his plate.

So this is once again a story about whether or not Tom will be able to get away with it, especially since he now has the paranoid and mentally unstable Bernard Tufts (forgerer turned body disposal buddy) acting incredibly unpredictable in the wake of the cover ups (he is a chimp with a gun, as my friend group likes to say). And once again Highsmith makes the reader actually wait to bated breath to see if Tom can pull it off, and the reader kind of WANTS him to pull it off. I will say this, the plot may have been a little more ho hum this time around, but in terms of his character Ripley is still Ripley and that is a very good thing. Even if his trajectory is well worn territory.

From murder and identity theft to art forgery and more murder, “Ripley Under Ground” was a continuation I had expected more from, but still found a nasty and enjoyable character in Tom Ripley. Next up is “Ripley’s Game”. Whatever shall he get into next?

Rating 7: Not as compelling as the first in the series, but “Ripley Under Ground” is a solid continuation of Tom Ripley, his fraudulent schemes, and his penchant for murdering to keep his lifestyle afloat.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Ripley Under Ground” is included on the Goodreads list “The Vilest Man in Fiction”.


Ripley’s Reviews: “The Talented Mr. Ripley”

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“Ripley’s Reviews” is an ongoing series where I will review every book in Patricia Highsmith’s “Ripley” Series, as well as multiple screen adaptations of the novels. I will post my reviews on the first Thursday of the month, and delve into the twisted mind of one Tom Ripley and all the various interpretations that he has come to life within. Up first is the first book in the series, “The Talented Mr. Ripley”.

Book: “The Talented Mr. Ripley” by Patricia Highsmith

Publishing Info: Coward-McCann, January 1955

Where Did I Get This Book: I own it.

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

Book Description: It’s here, in the first volume of Patricia Highsmith’s five-book Ripley series, that we are introduced to the suave Tom Ripley, a young striver seeking to leave behind his past as an orphan bullied for being a “sissy.” Newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan, Ripley meets a wealthy industrialist who hires him to bring his playboy son, Dickie Greenleaf, back from gallivanting in Italy. Soon Ripley’s fascination with Dickie’s debonair lifestyle turns obsessive as he finds himself enraged by Dickie’s ambivalent affections for Marge, a charming American dilettante, and Ripley begins a deadly game.

“Sinister and strangely alluring,” (Mark Harris, Entertainment Weekly) The Talented Mr. Ripley serves as an unforgettable introduction to this smooth confidence man, whose talent for self-invention is as unnerving—and unnervingly revealing of the American psyche—as ever.

Review: As mentioned in my intro to this new blog series, I first discovered Tom Ripley and “The Talented Mr. Ripley”, the first in Patricia Highsmith’s “Ripliad” when I was a teenager on Spring Break. It ended up being the perfect beach read, and I was totally immersed in the story of a con artist turned murderer usurping the life on an unsuspecting heir apparent on an Italian extended holiday. There has been a bit of a renaissance of creepy protagonists behaving badly all for the entertainment of a joyful audience, and clearly I picked this up all those years ago and it has followed me ever since. I was curious what revisiting it would be like as an adult with a healthy love of thrillers and despicable antiheroes, and baby, Tom Ripley still wows after all this time.

Cheers you sick bastard (also we will get to THIS specific Ripley in a few months). (source)

As a thriller it is taut and suspenseful and well paced, as we start off in New York and meet Tom Ripley, an aimless twenty something who finds himself asked by a wealthy patriarch to go and fetch his son Dickie Greenleaf, whom Ripley knew in passing and has been gallivanting in Italy on his father’s dime. Ripley and Dickie were barely acquaintances, but a free trip to Europe is too good to pass up, and once Tom arrives he is completely enamored with Dickie and his lifestyle. What starts as an awkward friendship between Tom and Dickie (and Dickie’s quasi-gal pal Marge) slowly turns into Ripley coveting everything Dickie has, which leads to murder, more murder, and identity theft and fraud. Highsmith approaches this with a very matter of fact tone that was in some ways a bit disturbing, but also knows how to eek out all of the tension as Tom does more nefarious things, and flirts more and more with danger as the authorities start to catch on that something is wrong. It’s cat and mouse and part of the suspense is not whether Ripley will get away with it, but whether he is going to be caught. And while that sounds like the same thing, it isn’t really. Because Highsmith lays this out in such a way that it is very likely that the reader will perhaps be more hopeful that he gets away with it.

How is this possible? Well, we of course have to talk about Tom Ripley and the way that Patricia Highsmith presents him to her readers and the audience. He was far more calculated and cold than I remembered him being, basically from the jump being portrayed as a con artist at best (as when he is approached by Dickie’s father to set forth to Italy he is running petty IRS scams on unsuspecting rubes) who sees an opportunity to live off the elite, and then revealing his sociopathic nature as the story goes on. I don’t particularly find Ripley charming or even likable, but Highsmith does write him in a way that managed to still make me kind of want to see how far he could go because she drew him out so well in her characterization. And having read it previously and knowing there are a few more books in the series, knowing he was going to get away with it was galling… but also a little satisfying. Come on, it’s not like the thriller genre doesn’t produce villainous protagonists all the time these days, and Ripley was certainly one of the first, and he still holds up. In this book it’s just a bit of a wicked thrill to see how he slowly takes over Dickie’s life and wealth, even if Dickie (and Ripley’s other victims) certainly don’t deserve it. Highsmith absolutely achieved what she set out to do with this character. I am more than happy to keep following him and see what terrible shenanigans he gets into going forward, because now I am wholly unaware. Bring it on, Tom.

“The Talented Mr. Ripley” was as enjoyable this time around as it was when I was a teenager, and it is a clear foundational work for the modern thriller. It gets under the skin but makes you want to know more. What a ride this ongoing series is going to be. Next up is Book 2 in the series, “Ripley Under Ground”.

Rating 8: A game changer for the Thriller genre and a deep dive into a highly despicable (yet highly entertaining) psychopath and his thought processes, “The Talented Mr. Ripley” still stands tall after all this time.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Talented Mr. Ripley” is included on the Goodreads lists “Thrillers You Must Read!”, and “I Like Serial Killers”.

Ripley’s Reviews: An Introduction and Brief History

“Ripley’s Reviews” is an ongoing series where I will review every book in Patricia Highsmith’s “Ripley” Series, as well as multiple screen adaptations of the novels. I will post my reviews on the first Thursday of the month, and delve into the twisted mind of one Tom Ripley and all the various interpretations that he has come to life within.

I remember when I was a teenager my family took a trip to California to visit relatives for Spring Break. It was around the time that the film “The Talented Mr. Ripley” had come out, and while I hadn’t seen it yet, the concept intrigued me enough that I got myself a copy of the book specifically for that trip. I have memories of reading it on the beach whilst staying in a house that our families had rented in the small tourist town of Capitola, and how enthralled I was by the story of a man slowly usurping another man’s identity and the murder and intrigue that went along with it. Recently, Netflix put together a new adaptation of the original novel called “Ripley”, which stars Andrew Scott as the sociopathic chameleon, and when that dropped I had an idea: not only was I going to revisit the original story, I was also going to read the whole series. AND watch as many adaptations as I could find. Thus, the “Ripley’s Reviews” series came to be.

Patricia Highsmith: The Creator

Patricia Highsmith is the author of the “Tom Ripley” series, whose works have been adapted over the years with not only “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and all of those forays, but also with the movie “Carol” which is based on her book “The Price of Salt”, and “Strangers on a Train”, one of Alfred Hitchcock’s earlier films. She was born in Texas in 1921, was abandoned by her mother and stepfather to live with her grandmother, and went to Barnard College, which was also when she started submitting her stories to various publications. She struggled with alcoholism, self loathing (as she was a queer woman living with internalized homophobia), and wasn’t exactly known as a genial or well liked person. But she was highly regarded as a very talented writer, and with the successes of “Strangers on a Train” and “The Price of Salt” she made her mark in the writing world. And then in 1955 she wrote “The Talented Mr. Ripley”, which became her arguably most well known work, as well as a character that had unsettling parallels to her own psyche. Her whole point was to make her readers root for a villain, and thus Tom Ripley was born.

Tom Ripley: The Impact

Tom Ripley is the main character in Highsmith’s “Tom Ripley” series, which she liked to call “The Ripliad”. His first appearance was in the aforementioned first book in the series “The Talented Mr. Ripley”, and was followed with four more books: “Ripley Underground”, “Ripley’s Game”, “The Boy Who Followed Ripley”, and “Ripley Under Water”. Tom Ripley is a con artist, who can seamlessly insert himself into unsuspecting people’s lives and slowly take them over. The first book in the series, and the most well known by the public, has Ripley starting his ‘adventures’ when he is hired by the wealthy Herbert Greenleaf to retrieve his cad of a son Dickie from an extended holiday in Italy, as Tom and Dickie once ran in a similar circle.

Once there, Tom becomes obsessed not only with Dickie, but also with the life of opulence and privilege he is living. Tom Ripley is a devious antihero who does despicable acts, but is one of those characters that is so fascinating to follow BECAUSE of how despicable they are. Recent character sensations who fit this mold are absolutely Joe Goldberg from “You” (both series by Caroline Kepnes and Netflix show), as well as Oliver from “Saltburn”, who obsess, covet, and kill all while the audience feels scandalized and enthralled. His impact on the Thriller genre is huge, and he was also one of those characters that felt completely real and in control of the narrative to the woman who created him.

Adaptations: Ripley and Beyond

“Ripley” is the newest adaptation of “The Talented Mr. Ripley”, but Andrew Scott is obviously not the first to step into the shoes of this malicious yet ever so intriguing imposter murderer. Matt Damon played him in 1999, which is very well known. But the adaptations don’t start there. In 1960 the French director René Clément made the film “Plein Soleil” (“Purple Noon” in English), starring Alain Delon as Ripley. And even more interesting to me, DENNIS HOPPER of all people played him in the 1977 film “The American Friend” which adapts the third book in the series “Ripley’s Game” for the screen. Which was then adapted again in 2002 starring John Malkovich as Ripley. It will be entirely dependent on how many of these films I can actually find, but I intend to watch and review as many of them as possible, as well as the Netflix series.

I am quite excited to jump back into the world of Tom Ripley and to go fully into the series instead of stopping at the first. My review for “The Talented Mr. Ripley” will go up in a week from now, and I invite you all to follow me on this journey into the stories of one of the most enduring thriller villains, and antiheroes, of the genre. I hope that you will join me as I jump into what will surely be a strange, disturbing, but really fun adventure as I go into the many worlds of Tom Ripley! -KATE

Sources:

Kate’s Review: “Strange Folk”

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Book: “Strange Folk” by Alli Dyer

Publishing Info: Atria Books, August 2024

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher at ALAAC24.

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

Book Description: A woman returns to her estranged, magical family in Appalachia but when a man is found dead in the woods nearby, it seems the family has conjured something sinister in this lush, shimmering, and wildly imaginative debut novel that is perfect for fans of Alice Hoffman, Deborah Harkness, and Sarah Addison Allen.

Lee left Craw Valley at eighteen without a backward glance. She wanted no part of the generations of her family who tapped into the power of the land to heal and help their community. But when she abandons her new life in California and has nowhere else to go, Lee returns to Craw Valley with her children in tow to live with her grandmother, Belva.

Lee vows to stay far away from Belva’s world of magic, but when the target of one of her grandmother’s spells is discovered dead, Lee fears that Belva’s magic may have summoned something dark.

As she and her family search for answers, Lee travels down a rabbit hole of strange phenomena and family secrets that force her to reckon with herself and rediscover her power in order to protect her family and the town she couldn’t leave behind.

Review: Thank you to Atria books for providing me with an ARC of this novel!

One of the panels I attended at ALAC24 was a preview of upcoming thriller titles with the authors at hand to describe their books. One of the books that caught my attention was “Strange Folk” by Alli Dyer, which had not only a fantasy element to the thriller story, but also involved a family of healers in the mountains of Appalachia that has used nature and their powers to help those around their community, as well as stirred up some trouble here and there when using those powers. We all know that this is the exact kind of story I am an absolute sucker for, so I was very excited to read this book, my hopes being pretty high.

In terms of the witchiness themes and lore I did find a lot I liked in this book. I was definitely getting some hints and homages to “Practical Magic” as a reluctant woman from a line of healers and supposed ‘witches’ returns to her Appalachia home with her children after a nasty divorce. Lee’s homecoming and reintegration into the town was really fun to watch unfold, as she starts to reconnect with her grandmother Belva, a well respected healer, and starts to interact with the land again and how it can bind and heal, and sometimes take and harm. I absolutely loved the descriptions of the spells, charms, tinctures, etcetera of the women in this family, and the various rituals that they would partake in in hopes of helping and healing. And the Appalachia setting makes for an even more unique lens, with Lee’s family being mountain folk who have hidden away from general society and made their own way, being trusted by some and feared by others. I honestly kept thinking about Misty Day in “American Horror Story: Coven” with her connection to nature and her more ‘folksy’ (for lack of a better term) traditions. This interpretation of witches really worked for me in this story, as I love a story with powerful women doing magic, or something like it.

But that kind of leads to why this didn’t work as well for me, and that is because unlike in “Practical Magic” I didn’t really become attached to any of the characters at hand. A lot of them had some promising backstories, traits, and personalities, but I never fully enjoyed them and never quite believed that they got to what I was hoping they would be. Whether it was our main character Lee, who had some great build up but then didn’t quite get past the building blocks of her character except to be like ‘oh no I guess we will stay because this is my home’, or her mother Redbud, who was consumed by a guilty conscience and then became a drug addict and traumatized her daughter, we had so many things that could have been explored…. but then just didn’t quite get the exploration I was hoping for. I don’t really need characters like this to be likable, but I at least want them to be interesting even if I can’t really root for them. And I had a VERY hard time with the dynamic between Lee and Redbud, and how it felt like there was probably a lot of grace and forgiveness when all was said and done without the amount of atonement that I REALLY needed from her. And by the time we got some answers and reveals about what was going on, I was more happy that we were wrapping up as opposed to actually getting fulfilling answers.

I had higher hopes for “Strange Folk”, and while the concept, setting, and lore worked for me, I wanted from from our cast of mountain witches and their loved ones. I think it would be a good choice for the upcoming Autumn, however.

Rating 6: A strong premise and some interesting folk lore makes for a cool concept, but I wasn’t as invested in the characters.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Strange Folk” isn’t on many specific Goodreads lists but I think if you like books like “Practical Magic” and other magical family sagas this could be a good match.