Tag: Thriller

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”

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 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”

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

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.

Kate’s Review: “You Will Never Be Me”

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

Book: “You Will Never Be Me” by Jesse Q. Sutanto

Publishing Info: Berkley, August 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: When cracks start forming in an influencer’s curated life, she finds out that jealousy is just as viral as a video in this riveting suspense novel by bestselling author Jesse Q. Sutanto.

Influencer Meredith Lee didn’t teach Aspen Palmer how to blossom on social media just to be ditched as soon as Aspen became big. So can anyone really blame Mer for doing a little stalking? Nothing serious, more like Stalking Lite.

Then Mer gets lucky; she finds one of Aspen’s kids’ iPads and swipes it. Now she has access to the family calendar and Aspen’s social media accounts. Would anyone else be able to resist tweaking things a little here and there, showing up in Aspen’s place for meetings with potential sponsors? Mer’s only taking back what she deserves—what should have been hers. 

Meanwhile, Aspen doesn’t understand why her perfectly filtered life is falling apart. Sponsors are dropping her, fellow influencers are ghosting her, and even her own husband seems to find her repulsive. If she doesn’t find out who’s behind everything, she might just lose it all. But what everyone seems to forget is that Aspen didn’t become one of TikTok’s biggest momfluencers by being naive.

When Meredith suddenly goes missing, Aspen’s world is upended and mysterious threats begin to arrive—but she won’t let anything get in the way of her perfect life again.

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

I’m really happy to see that more and more family influencers are getting called out, or at the very least more scrutinized, as of late. I think that the very public fall of Ruby Franke helped with this shift, but it’s been a long time coming. It’s probably not too shocking that as more of this has been in the public eye, more books involving family vloggers and family influencers have been cropping up. And I’ve been reaping the benefits, as this kind of plot is catnip for me. So I was obviously very interested in reading “You Will Never Be Me” by Jesse Q. Sutanto, which involves two mommy influencer frenemies named Mer and Aspen, who used to be tight but had a huge falling out that leads to Mer trying to wreck Aspen’s very curated public image. It all sounds great on paper. Sadly, in execution it didn’t get to the level I was hoping for.

You all know that I always start with the good when it comes to a book that I didn’t really connect with, and this time is no different. And the good is REALLY good and something that I don’t get to say too often: THERE IS A FANTASTIC TWIST THAT I DIDN’T SEE COMING IN THIS BOOK! I feel like so much of the time when I take on a thriller of a certain kind I have to complain about a twist that is either unearned, or thrown in at the last moment for shock value, or was easy to spot a mile away. None of these things happen in the big twist in “You Will Never Be Me”. In fact the moment it was revealed I said to myself ‘wait…. HOLD UP!?’, and jumped back to the beginning of the chapter to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. I’m not going to say anything here details wise, but Sutanto so expertly dropped it in in such an unexpected place and moment with such a subtle set up that I set my Kindle down for a moment just to process what I had just read. And it’s a bit of a one two punch as well, with a couple dimensions to the twist that made it all the more satisfying. This is how it’s done!

But unfortunately, well executed twist or not, there were a number of aspects to this book that didn’t work for me. For one, Mommy Blog and Influencer satire is starting to be seen more in books, with more and more scandals coming out about these kinds of accounts and more people starting to question what this kind of exposure and exploitation does to the children involved. Always pertinent points, and it can be really well done satire as well as social commentary on something that is becoming more and more talked about. But the problem here is that the examples in this are very heavy handed, even if I don’t necessarily disagree with them. One such example that sticks out is Meredith at one point admitting that she had her child via a sperm donor because she knew that the engagement would go up if she shifted from her initial platform into a mommy influencer like Aspen was. Again, I don’t doubt that on some level family influencers do view their children as content and the more content you have the more engagement you have (I think about the family that adopted an autistic boy from China to use it as a story their followers could keep up with, and then ‘rehomed’ him because he was too difficult and burst their perfect family ideal as presented to their followers). But I had a hard time believing that Mer would be so up front and flippant about it, and it just felt like it was just another way to show how awful she was. Which segues into my other gripe fairly well; both Mer and Aspen, the characters whose POVs we follow, are just really unsympathetic characters with not much depth, which makes it very hard to follow them. I am one hundred percent down for having unlikable characters as protagonists, especially in thrillers and ESPECIALLY if they are women (lord knows male characters get more passes in this way). But I want them to be at least interesting and rounded in their villainy. In this book they felt more like caricatures. Aspen had a little more depth as she feels the need to carry the financial burden in her home, especially since one of her children is diabetic, but we only barely scratched the surface with her. Mer felt like a full cartoon villain at times. I think that had there been a bit more exploration and complexity I could have swallowed it better, but as it was, it just didn’t ever click.

“You Will Never Be Me” didn’t quite live up to the high hopes I had for it. It was refreshing having such a stellar twist, but that wasn’t enough to save it.

Rating 5: A fantastic twist that came earlier than anticipated was well done, but it can’t save the facts that all of the characters are terrible and in a fun way and the satire doesn’t have much bite.

Reader’s Advisory:

“You Will Never Be Me” is included on the Goodreads list “Thrillers You Must Read!”.

Kate’s Review: “House of Bone and Rain”

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

Book: “House of Bone and Rain” by Gabino Iglesias

Publishing Info: Mulholland Books, August 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: In the latest from Shirley Jackson and Bram Stoker Award-winning author of THE DEVIL TAKES YOU HOME, a group of five teenage boys, living in Puerto Rico, seek vengeance after one of their mothers is murdered; a doomed tale of devotion and the afterlife of violence.

For childhood friends Gabe, Xavier, Tavo, Paul, and Bimbo, death has always been close. Hurricanes. Car accidents. Gang violence. Suicide. Estamos rodeados de fantasmas was Gabe’s grandmother’s refrain. We are surrounded by ghosts. But this time is different. Bimbo’s mom has been shot dead. We’re gonna kill the guys who killed her Bimbo swears. And they all agree.

Feral with grief, Bimbo has become unrecognizable, taking no prisoners in his search for names. Soon, they learn Maria was gunned down by guys working for the drug kingpin of Puerto Rico. No one has ever gone up against him and survived. As the boys strategize, a storm gathers far from the coast. Hurricanes are known to carry evil spirits in their currents and bring them ashore, spirits which impose their own order.

Blurring the boundaries between myth, mysticism, and the grim realities of our world, House of Bone and Rain is a harrowing coming of age story; a doomed tale of devotion, the afterlife of violence, and what rolls in on the tide.

Review: Thank you to Mulholland Books and Hachette for sending me an ARC of this novel! Special thanks even, as they were super kind to send me an ARC after I had missed out on getting one at ALA, and took down my information once I told the reps at the booth how much I was looking forward to this book. It was a very kind gesture and it was a lovely book mail arrival!

I know by now that if I am going to read a book by Gabino Iglesias, it’s going to be a rough go with lots of visceral violence, dark themes, and yet a gorgeous lyrical journey to boot. It stands to reason, then, that “House of Bone and Rain” was a tip top priority on my list, even if it was going to no doubt really kick me in the teeth, emotionally. But I have really enjoyed everything I’ve read by Iglesias, and because of that I knew that his newest horror novel needed to be a priority, even if it was a bit unclear what the horror components, at least the supernatural ones were going to be. But ultimately, I shouldn’t have been surprised that while the supernatural ones were grand and well done, it was the real life ones that would REALLY cut to the bone.

I don’t really want to spoil the horror aspects of this book, as there is a reason it is kept a bit close to the vest in the description. Iglesias packs a wallop of a punch with the reveal, and it made me go ‘wait…. what?!’, but in the best way possible. I will say that some of the ins and outs of it felt a bit Cosmic-y, with an impending storm surge churning up something otherworldly, and while it’s not full on Cthulhu or Old Gods in its execution, the largeness and inevitability of it was really heavy throughout the narrative. Which is a lovely theme in tandem to a monster storm that is about to bear down on an island like Maria did. Some of the descriptions of the big reveal were very creepy, and I loved how it was presented and how it fit in with both the hurricane as well as the threats that Gabe, Bimbo, Xavier, Tavo, and Paul are all dealing with in the wake of Bimbo’s mother’s murder. The violence is supernatural and all too real, and it makes the horror beats feel all the more unnerving as the story goes on.

But horror elements aside, this book reads just as well as a drug kingpin thriller with real world tragedies and horrors at the heart. Gabe, Bimbo, Xavier, Tavo, and Paul are best friends brought together by their shared experience of living a difficult life in Puerto Rico, where the ghosts of colonialism have led to lots of corruption, wealth disparities, and lots of experiences with violence, even before Bimbo’s mother’s death. As Bimbo and his friends are driven by vengeance, and as Hurricane Maria is about to barrel down on the island and cause mass devastation on top of that, our characters are pulling together in the face of terrible odds, and for a sense of a need for justice that they won’t be able to achieve due to their circumstances and the systemic disparities they are living within. I was on the edge of my seat watching them all make these decisions, because while I KNEW that these were sometimes TERRIBLE decisions, I felt like Iglesias perfectly captured why they were doing these things because I understood the realities they they were living, and how it shapes each of them. Bimbo is especially a complicated and intriguing character, because while his mission to take out a VIOLENT DRUG KINGPIN with no real plan, and putting his friends in severe danger (and not being super forthcoming in some ways but that is all I will say) was absolutely CRAZY to me… but I also know that the grief and the loss meant that he had nothing to lose, and I couldn’t really fault him to a point. Iglesias is the kind of author who shows a huge picture of complex characters and dire circumstances, and you generally know that happy endings in his tales are hard to come by, but they are still great reads because he pulls out such emotion and poignancy with the bleakness. The repeated phrase in this book, ‘all stories are ghost stories’, is especially moving as we see their reality laid out bare.

“House of Bone and Rain” didn’t disappoint! Gabino Iglesias has created another unrelenting horror thriller that got under my skin, and surprised me in a lot of ways.

Rating 8: A merciless, creepy, and devastating story about friendship, revenge, desperation, and loss, with sprinkles of Cosmic-ish horror to go with the real world ones.

Reader’s Advisory:

“House of Bone and Rain” is included on the Goodreads lists “Horror to Look Forward to in 2024”, and “2024 Adult Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Speculative Releases by BIPOC Authors”.

Kate’s Review: “49 Miles Alone”

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

Book: “49 Miles Alone” by Natalie D. Richards

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Fire, July 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: Four days alone in the desert. Except they’re not as alone as they think.

A year ago, Katie and her cousin Aster survived a night that left their world and easy friendship fractured. Desperate to heal and leave the past behind them, they tackle four days of hiking in the Utah backcountry. But the desert they’ve loved for years has tricks up its sleeve. An illness, an injury, and a freak storm leave them short on confidence and supplies. When they come across a young couple with extra supplies on the trail, they’re grateful and relieved―at first. Riley exudes friendliness, but everything about her boyfriend Finn spells trouble.

That night, after some chilling admissions about Finn from Riley, Katie and Aster wake to hear the couple fighting. Helpless and trapped in the darkness, they witness Riley’s desperate race into the night, with Finn chasing after. In the morning, they find the couple’s camp, but Riley and Finn? Vanished. Katie is sure Riley is in trouble. And with help a two-day hike away, they know they are the only ones who can save her before something terrible happens. The clock is ticking and their supplies are dwindling, but Katie and Aster know they have to find Riley before Finn―or the desert―gets to her first.

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

I truly think that Summer, while not a favorite season of mine, has a book vibe that I really like to adhere to. Much like Fall feeling like the perfect ambiance for a horror story or a cozy fantasy, for me Summer feels like the best time to tap into various kinds of thrillers. One of those sub-genres is survival thrillers, especially if they are set in the wilderness. So I was very excited to read “49 Miles Alone” by Natalie D. Richards, which follows cousins Katie and Aster on a wilderness hike that goes pretty sour and they are suddenly in the web of a killer. This is my FAVORITE kind of wilderness survival tale, and I hopped on in ready for a wild ride!

I’ve mentioned before that I’m not an outdoorsy kinda person outside of the occasional hike through a state or national park, or for some landscape photography excursions. Certainly not multiple days of camping or hardcore hiking and off trail backpacking. But I do love seeing that premise used in a survival/wilderness thriller, and “49 Miles Alone” does a great job of highlighting the real dangers of the wilderness even without having a killer in the vicinity. As Katie and Aster start their journey, it’s already tense due to an incident in the near past that left Aster wracked with guilt and Katie traumatized, and things just keep going wrong and make the tension build all the more. Whether it’s weirdos on the trail, or a storm that manifested out of nowhere and makes the trail that much more unpredictable and dangerous, or Aster suddenly falling ill, many small things keep piling up to turn into one big troublesome and dangerous situation. I’ve known people who do this kind of hiking and camping who have BEEN in these sudden life or death situations where you have to make quick decisions that could end very badly, and watching Katie and Aster have to contend with these things on top of Katie’s trauma and Aster’s guilt made for a lot of really well done suspenseful beats.

But the main point of suspension, when Aster and Katie meet a couple on the trail and Katie suspects the man, Finn, to be dangerous, didn’t hit as hard as i had hoped it would. I normally really like this trope of wilderness savvy people meeting dangerous psychos and having to navigate the wilderness with them, as when it’s done well (like in “The River Wild” or “Desolation”, two films I really like) it can be SO nerve wracking. But I think that in this one it gets a little tripped up, partially due to the timing of meeting Finn and his hiking partner/girlfriend Riley, and partially due to not really getting much insight into the two of them outside of some interactions from Aster’s and Katie’s POVs. To make things worse, by the time we do get to the main driving conflict of potentially being hunted down, it felt a bit more rushed as opposed to the slow build of the earlier parts of the book. I also kind of called one of the big twists pretty quickly, which always kind of pulls the wind out of the sails of a thriller.

So it was a bit of a mixed bag. But that said, “49 Miles Alone” has some really good bits of realistic wilderness survival thrills. It’s a good summer read to be sure!

Rating 7: I loved the tense build up of the perils of an unpredictable hike between tension filled cousins, and I wish it had stayed more in that realm as the dangerous killer on the trail was a little underwhelming.

Reader’s Advisory:

“49 Miles Alone” is included on the Goodreads list “YA Novels of 2024”.

Kate’s Review: “Ladykiller”

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

Book: “Ladykiller” by Katherine Wood

Publishing Info: Bantam, July 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: When an heiress goes missing, her best friend races to unravel the secrets behind her disappearance using clues left behind in an explosive manuscript…

Gia and Abby have been best friends since they were girls, forever bonded by the tragedy that unfolded in Greece when they were eighteen. In the aftermath, bookish Abby threw herself into her studies while heiress Gia chronicled the events of that fateful summer in a salacious memoir.

Twelve years later, Gia is back in Greece for the summer with her shiny new husband and a motley crew of glamorous guests, preparing to sell the family estate in the wake of her father’s death. When Abby receives an invitation from Gia to celebrate her birthday in September beneath the Northern Lights, she’s thrilled to be granted the time off from her high-pressure job. But the day of her flight, she receives a mysterious, threatening email in her inbox, and when she and Gia’s brother Benny arrive at the Swedish resort, Gia isn’t there. After days of cryptic messages and unanswered calls, Abby and Benny are worried enough to fly to Greece to check on her.

Only, when they arrive, they find Gia’s beachfront estate eerily deserted, the sole clue to her whereabouts a manuscript she wrote detailing the events leading up to her disappearance. The pages reveal the dark truth about Gia’s provocative new marriage and the dirty secrets of the guests they entertained with fizzy champagne under the hot Mediterranean sun. As tensions rise, Gia feels less and less safe in her own home. But the pages end abruptly, leaving Abby and Benny with more questions than answers.

Where is Gia now? And, more importantly, will they find her before it’s too late?

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

We are now smack dab in the middle of summer now, and I don’t know about you, dear readers, but I have a LOT of pool time coming up as the temps go up and the family wants to cool off. While I spend a fair amount of time at the pool keeping an eye on my kid, if the husband is there too we split the time, which means I get to read when I’m not on swim duty. Which in turn means that I’m looking for good poolside reads that keep me entertained and keep my interest, the more scandalous the better. “Ladykiller” by Katherine Wood was one such book. You have a missing woman, a Grecian backdrop, a potentially shady new husband, and some long hidden secrets. All of this is the perfect mix for the kind of thriller I want poolside! And while it definitely scratched some itches, overall, unfortunately, I found this one to be a bit hit or miss.

The story structure of this novel is told from two different perspectives, one from the perspective of Abby and the other from Gia. Abby is Gia’s long time friend, who has worked incredibly hard to become an attorney and who had a falling out with the heiress newlywed Gia due to her not approving of the whirlwind romance and fast marriage. Abby and Gia’s brother Benny are supposed to meet Gia for her birthday, but find her missing and not answering her phone. The other perspective is the manuscript from Gia’s newest memoir, which is a record of what was happening on her estate in Greece with her husband Garrett, two strangers they befriended, and the slow realization that Garrett is perhaps not what he seems. Both perspectives round out the mystery, with the reader being able to follow along and to learn things that perhaps one woman may not know of the other, which I always enjoy. It’s also interesting getting their varying perspectives on some of their shared secrets, as Abby has some guilt for past actions, and Gia’s memoir starts to veer into ‘is this unreliable’ territory. I greatly enjoyed these aspects of this book.

All that said, I think that while it’s entertaining in structure, I wasn’t super invested in any of the characters, and wasn’t terribly surprised by many of the twists and reveals as the mystery went on. It follows a pretty well explored formula, and it doesn’t really go outside the expected norms. I found it entertaining as it was going, and I was interested to see how things were going to shake out, but I wasn’t terribly invested in many of the characters and what their outcomes were going to be. I also found some of the choices made by the characters, Abby in particular, to be a bit galling. It just had a lot of potential to really bowl me over as the recipe for that is there. But it never quite came together. But hey, I did find it to be entertaining for the most part, and one I could easily pick up and put down as needed.

“Ladykiller” is a poolside read through and through and one I would recommend to those who are looking for such a thing. There’s still lots of summer left! Add it to your pile you keep in the swim bag.

Rating 6: It’s entertaining for the most part, but the twists and turns were pretty obvious and I wasn’t interested in many of the characters.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Ladykiller” is included on the Goodreads list “Mystery and Thriller 2024”.

Kate’s Review: “Such a Bad Influence”

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

Book: “Such a Bad Influence” by Olivia Muenter

Publishing Info: Quirk Books, June 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: For fans of Ashley Winstead, a razor-sharp debut about what happens when one of the first child stars of the social media age grows up . . . and goes missing.

Hazel Davis is drifting: she’s stalled in her career, living in a city she hates, and less successful than her younger sister @evelyn, a lifestyle influencer. Evie came of age on the family YouTube channel after a viral video when she was five. Ten years older and spotlight-averse, Hazel managed to dodge the family business—so although she can barely afford her apartment, at least she made her own way.

Evie is eighteen now, with a multimillion-dollar career, but Hazel is still protective of her little sister and skeptical of the way everyone seems to want a piece of her: Evie’s followers, her YouTuber boyfriend and influencer frenemies, and their opportunistic mother. So when Evie disappears one day during an unsettling live stream that cuts out midsentence, Hazel is horrified to have her worst instincts proven right.

As theories about Evie’s disappearance tear through the internet, inspiring hashtags, Reddit threads, and podcast episodes, Hazel throws herself into the darkest parts of her sister’s world to untangle the truth. After all, Hazel knows Evie better than anyone else . . . doesn’t she?

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

Back at the end of last summer a particularly disturbing crime story dropped, in which Youtube Mommy Blogger Ruby Franke and her business associate Jodi Hildebrandt were arrested for six counts of aggravated child abuse against Franke’s two youngest children. Franke and her family rose to fame through her now defunct 8 Passengers YouTube channel, where she would document and monetize family life and wholesome conservative/Mormon values. So it was a shock to many when she was arrested for starving, beating, maiming, and abusing two of the kids that had once been on the channel and in so many people’s lives through a computer screen. It wasn’t a shock for me, though, having been tuned in to the whole swamp that is child influencers on social media for awhile. So it’s no surprise that “Such a Bad Influence” by Oliva Muenter caught my attention, as it’s a thriller that has that very idea as a hook. I had such high expectations for this book, and was very excited to read it. So it’s not too dramatic to say that after riding a high on it for a good three fourths of the novel, the last fourth knocked me back to Earth in a frustrating way.

Firstly though I’m going to talk about the things that I did like about this book, because for the great majority of it I was very, very pleased with what I was reading. For one, I am a huge sucker for missing person books, and “Such a Bad Influence” has a great hook of a very popular influencer named Evie Davis going radio silent mid livestream, and as her silence continues people start speculating she’s actually missing. This is already a winning aspect for me, and you add in a protagonist in the form of her older sister Hazel, who has shunned the spotlight and has worried over Evie even before this moment in time. Hazel’s motivation is totally believable, and while she’s prickly and difficult in some ways I liked her tenacity and her drive to find the younger sister she feels she has failed in many ways. I also really, really liked the themes of the ethics of children being shown online for profit, usually by their parents, and using them as money makers by exploiting their time, image, and very existence when they can’t REALLY consent. And along with that come the strangers who seek out these accounts of underage children who have disgusting ulterior motives, and how the full access to these accounts can enable predation. This is all through the role of Evie and Hazel’s mother Erin, who once posted a tragic video that went viral and rocketed Evie to fame, and with that came her ambitions to become a momager to her now incredibly popular daughter. And all the shady choices that come with a fortune from business ventures, sponsorships, and clicks constant content churning. I’ve been tapped into this ethical debate for almost two years now, when the podcast “Someplace Under Neith” did a whole series on exploitation of children on social media vis a vis influencer accounts, but it has come more to the forefront in society’s eyes due to the aforementioned Ruby Franke/Jodi Hildebrandt case and a long investigative article by the New York Times (which my husband was texting me about the day it dropped, in full horror, and I was like ‘yep, I know all this, why do you think all my social media accounts where I have images of our kid are private/highly vetted?’). There were also some good points about how true crime exploits people as well, but I won’t go into that as much because eh, that’s pretty well worn territory these days as it seems EVERYONE needs to be pointing that out in any story that involves a true crime community angle. We get it, we’re creeps. But I did like the way this story addressed it as it wasn’t as hamfisted as it could have been. All of this was fantastic, and I was really loving this book and the issues that Muenter was touching upon.

BUT. ONCE AGAIN, a really fun and engaging thriller/mystery was, for me, completely derailed by a wholly unnecessary twist ending.

THIS JUST KEEPS HAPPENING LATELY. (source)

Okay, look. I’m not so naive to believe that these kinds of rug yanked out from under you twists aren’t popular with the thriller fanbase. I would probably even be willing to concede that for a lot of people the big surprising twist is a good part of the fun of a thriller, to see how creative an author can be and how their misdirection can surprise a reader. But I am getting sick of it. Nay, I’ve BEEN sick of it. It always feels like it negates everything that came before, especially when there was an already in place solid first ending that was upended with a few paragraphs after a time jump of all things, which just felt like a yadda yadda yadda of a significant plot point. And honestly I didn’t really like that one so much either because it wasn’t super fleshed out to begin with, but at least it felt earned and like everything was building up to it. This damn twist had a couple of hints towards it too I suppose, but it still felt like a cheap final ‘gotcha’ that I really didn’t have the patience for this time around. That’s probably not the fault of the book, but man, I’m just so over this kind of device.

I was bummed that “Such a Bad Influence” had a thud of an ending after a solid and enjoyable rise before the fall. If you like shocking final act game changers by all means check it out for yourself. Far be it from me to ruin that kind of fun for those who enjoy it.

Rating 6: What started as a twisted and entertaining thriller eventually ended with a clunk and an unnecessary twist.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Such a Bad Influence” is included in the Goodreads article/list “Readers’ 54 Most Anticipated Summer Mysteries & Thrillers”.

Kate’s Review: “Middle of the Night”

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

Book: “Middle of the Night” by Riley Sager

Publishing Info: Dutton, June 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: In the latest jaw-dropping thriller from New York Times bestselling author Riley Sager, a man must contend with the long-ago disappearance of his childhood best friend—and the dark secrets lurking just beyond the safe confines of his picture-perfect neighborhood.

The worst thing to ever happen on Hemlock Circle occurred in Ethan Marsh’s backyard. One July night, ten-year-old Ethan and his best friend and neighbor, Billy, fell asleep in a tent set up on a manicured lawn in a quiet, quaint New Jersey cul de sac. In the morning, Ethan woke up alone. During the night, someone had sliced the tent open with a knife and taken Billy. He was never seen again.

Thirty years later, Ethan has reluctantly returned to his childhood home. Plagued by bad dreams and insomnia, he begins to notice strange things happening in the middle of the night. Someone seems to be roaming the cul de sac at odd hours, and signs of Billy’s presence keep appearing in Ethan’s backyard. Is someone playing a cruel prank? Or has Billy, long thought to be dead, somehow returned to Hemlock Circle?

The mysterious occurrences prompt Ethan to investigate what really happened that night, a quest that reunites him with former friends and neighbors and leads him into the woods that surround Hemlock Circle. Woods where Billy claimed monsters roamed and where a mysterious institute does clandestine research on a crumbling estate.

The closer Ethan gets to the truth, the more he realizes that no place—be it quiet forest or suburban street—is completely safe. And that the past has a way of haunting the present.

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

It’s fully summer now, and along with the promises of pool days, barbecuing, river tubing, and melting in the heat and therefore hiding in an air conditioned home as much as I can, I also have the promise of a new Riley Sager novel every year. And this year we have “Middle of the Night”, a new thriller about a long missing boy, the man who was the one left behind and facing survivor guilt, and a neighborhood that has had this case haunting them for decades… oh, and also a spectral person lurking in the neighborhood in the dead of night. Oh yes. This has potential for sure.

Like most of Sager’s books before it, I was entertained by the mystery and the twists and turns of “Middle of the Night”. The initial mystery is already a solid premise: thirty years ago, Ethan Marsh and his neighborhood best friend Billy were camping in his backyard on a sleepover, only for their tent to be cut into and Billy to go missing, with Ethan clueless as to what happened outside of shoddy flashes of memories that don’t make much sense. In the present Ethan has returned to the old neighborhood to sell his parents house after their retirement, and has started noticing weird things, like a mysterious shadow person creeping through the neighborhood at night, or signs of life that only Billy could have done back in the day. You already have me with the questions of what happened to Billy, and who (or what) is now sending Ethan messages thirty years later, but then Sager adds MORE to it by bringing in a mysterious local institution with connections to the Ivy League that may or may not have been doing some odd things they hoped to keep hidden. The weirdness and the slow reveals of how THAT plays into the story, as well as more evidence, motives, suspects, and, yes, red herrings, makes for a suspenseful read as we jump from Ethan’s perspective in the present to other people’s perspectives in the past, and even though it could have been a lot of narrative shifting, it worked well for me. I was genuinely surprised by a lot of the reveals, and even those that weren’t as shocking to me still felt executed tightly and properly. I know that Sager can be polarizing to thriller fans, but I always buy into his books because it’s just fun to experience the ride.

Sager is usually a good bet if you want an entertaining read for the fun summer months, and “Middle of the Night” once again delivers on that. But what I also liked about this book is how Sager explores the themes of survivor guilt and collective trauma for those who live in a tight knit community when a person, especially a young person, goes missing. My mind kept wandering back to a notorious and long lingering Minnesota case, that of Jacob Wetterling, who was kidnapped by a masked man in 1989 and was missing for decades until they got a confession and found his body in 2016. Ethan has come back to the place where his best friend vanished, and has to face how that has shaped his life up until now, and how that has reverberated through his relationships, actions, and experiences, usually with tragic elements as he hasn’t fully reconciled all of his guilt and fear and heartbreak. I found Ethan to be a very easy to follow main character, and I thought that Sager really dug into his psyche. It’s also a change to have a male protagonist in a Sager book (I suppose “Survive the Night” had a dual POV with a male protagonist, but it was split), so that was a breath of fresh air. And hell, we even get a little bit into the minds of all the people in the neighborhood around the time Billy disappears, which gave more complicated layers to a supposedly perfect suburban setting. I always enjoy a dressing down of the facade of a perfect Americana community, and “Middle of the Night” peels back some layers and exposes the cracks that were there even before Billy disappeared. It makes for some added pathos to an already emotional premise.

Ultimately I found “Middle of the Night” to be another serviceable thriller, and one perfect for summer vacations. It’s speedy and fun and I continue to hold Riley Sager in high regard when it comes to genuinely enjoyable thrillers.

Rating 8: Tense and at times incredibly sad, “Middle of the Night” is about going home in the face of unresolved trauma, and a neighborhood haunted (perhaps literally) by a long lost child.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Middle of the Night” is included on the Goodreads list “Best Dark Fiction of 2024”.