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Season 2 of Poker Face is coming to Peacock on May 8th! And we have more good news: we now have a clip from one of the episodes… and not just an episode, but the episode in which Cynthia Erivo plays sextuplets (or quintuplets… I’m not yet clear). The episode is titled “The Game is a Foot” (love that), and Natasha Lyonne released a clip of it to her Instagram and X accounts. Rian Johnson also spoke with The Independent about how they filmed the multiple Cynthia Erivos onscreen together without the use of CGI. Here at CrimeReads, we love practical effects! Just one more month, and then we’re there! View the full article

Sharon Derrick drove an hour north on Interstate 45 through the Houston suburban sprawl and the piney woods of Sam Houston National Forest to a prison in a rural county north of Huntsville. On the way, she found herself tuning her audio system to a 1970s channel on Sirius XM. In 1972, the year when Mark Scott was abducted and murdered, Roberta Flack had climbed the charts with the love song “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” America was singing about a trip through the desert on “A Horse with No Name,” and Neil Young was searching for a “Heart of Gold.” The forensic anthropologist rarely visited prisoners as part of her ID work. She had prepared for this interview by rereading 1973 statements Henley, Corll’s teenaged accomplice, had already given police and journalists. She’d even located cryptic notes made from a session when Henley had agreed to undergo hypnosis in the 1980s and record mumbled recollections into a microphone for Dr. Joe, Harris County’s legendary ME. Derrick had a mission. She wanted to know everything that Wayne Henley recalled about the Lost Boys, the remaining unidentified victims, no matter how small. “I wanted to see if we had other mistaken IDs,” she said. “And I wanted to know what else he had to tell me so I could try to track people.” Derrick parked her BMW in the lot outside the prison, leaving her cellphone inside her car as required. She went through the prison ID check and X-­ray machine, passed through two sets of autolocking electronic doors topped with razor wire, and then was greeted by an official who ushered her into a windowless office stripped of any adornment. She’d been allowed to bring in blank pieces of paper, a pen, and her files, but no tape recorder. She’d barely taken a seat at a swivel chair behind the desk when a guard brought in Henley. Once he was inside, the guard departed, leaving Derrick alone in a locked room with a convicted killer serving six life sentences. Henley attempted to break the ice with a joke. “When I first got here, other prisoners kept dumping boxes of cereal on my chair in the mess hall,” he said, grinning. “Since I was a serial killer.” Derrick smiled but didn’t laugh. In preparation for this meeting, she had donned the same kind of mental armor she used to stomach particularly troubling cases in an autopsy suite. This was Derrick’s third visit to a Texas prison on this case. She’d sparred with Corll’s other accomplice – David Brooks – in two prior interviews. But Henley spoke freely. Henley’s voice took on the folksy tone of a practiced Texas story-teller as he launched into the gory tale of how he’d murdered teens he’d known, including childhood playmates and junior high friends. Derrick struggled to keep up, scribbling facts in longhand on blank sheets of paper and tried to maintain eye contact. “I wanted to show him that I was interested in him, because that’s part of the game. He wants people to be interested in him,” she recalls. Derrick jotted down the notes on victims’ names, forms of homicidal violence, and burial sites. She would later compare his statements to autopsy reports and other records in her growing collections and look for inconsistencies that could be clues to unidentified persons or mistakes. Derrick’s take was that Henley had been nothing but a punk “with acne and a bad mustache” until Corll boosted his sense of self-importance. “He was part of something—­ part of something secret, and part of him embraced that,” she later observed. Henley admitted he knew Mark Scott , a boy he’d named as a murder vicitim in August 1973, better than most others. Mark was Henley’s neighbor and former schoolmate. And Mark had attended plenty of parties at Corll’s ever-changing addresses, Henley said. Corll ­really liked Mark, but he turned against him in April 1972 for reasons Henley did not explain. “Dean wanted him out of the way,” Henley told Derrick. For whatever reason, Corll thought Mark had been “talking too much,” Henley said. On command, Henley went to pick up Mark, who went willingly to a place Corll was renting that year. Derrick knew horrible things happened in the apartment on Schuler Street, Inside the apartment, Mark was quickly overpowered and hand-cuffed. Then Corll took Mark to a bedroom and bound his feet and wrists to the torture board. Corll kept the seventeen-­ year-­old captive for two nights and one long day, to torment and repeatedly rape him, Henley said. On Corll’s command, Henley and Brooks both got high and participated in the sessions. “Mark Scott was messed with. He was beaten and burned with cigarettes. All three of us did it. Dean hated him,” Henley said. Henley, knowing that Mark was particularly proud of his long blond hair, decided to shave his head, letting the locks slowly drift to the floor. Derrick thought she finally spotted a smidgeon of regret when Henley spoke about Mark Scott’s murder. “You could tell it ­really bothered him,” Derrick remembered. The story was “gut-­wrenching.” On the last night of his life, when the rest were sleeping, Mark Scott somehow managed to contort his long muscular frame, gradually loosen the ropes that bound him to the plywood, and free one hand. In this moment of mortal peril, he managed to reach the rotary phone to dial a friend, but he mumbled into the receiver, likely with a gag still in his mouth, and couldn’t make himself understood. Later, he pocketed a small knife that his captors had used to cut him. Mark hid the weapon and made one last desperate attempt at self-­defense when the rest returned. “I grabbed it and then he kind of gave up,” Henley said. After that, all three took turns shooting Scott with a pellet gun, and Corll raped Scott again. It may have seemed like a crazy dream to Wayne Henley, who’d been high on paint fumes and pot, until Corll decreed that Henley needed to “pop his cherry” and make the kill. At that point in their conversation, Wayne Henley fidgeted in his bench seat and looked pained as he provided vivid details of how he’d tried to strangle and then shot Mark, as his friend begged for his life. After that, Wayne came to like killing. “I killed them because Dean said to. I guess I enjoyed it or just didn’t care anymore or I was just trying to please Dean. It was not something I was forced to do.” Derrick had observed many horrible souvenirs of human suffering in autopsy suites and in graves, but the dead didn’t speak of their pain. Her rare encounters with killers typically involved only a fleeting glance at a defendant in a courtroom whenever she testified as an impartial expert witness. As Henley retold the intimate and horrifying story of Mark Scott’s murder, she felt flashes of terror, anger, and disgust. Then Wayne Henley repeated a different story Derrick had read about. Two days after killing Dean Corll, he spent hours searching for graves amid sand dunes with David Brooks, In 1973, Henley had insisted that officials called off the search too soon – before all the bodies were recovered. He told Derrick the same thing. Mark Scott’s body had never been found. “You don’t have him,” he said. ___________________________________ Excerpted from The Scientist and the Serial Killer by Lise Olsen Copyright © 2025 by Lise Olsen. Excerpted by permission of Random House. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. View the full article

Twenty-one years ago, National Hockey League forward Todd Bertuzzi got into an on-ice altercation with an opponent named Steve Moore. The encounter grew exceptionally violent. Moore suffered injuries that ended his NHL career. Bertuzzi went through civil and criminal litigation hell, but eventually resumed what turned out to be a decent hockey career. As a hockey player myself, I found this outcome upsetting. Why, I thought, shouldn’t Bertuzzi be suspended from the game for as long as Moore was unable to play? It seemed only fair. Over time, I calmed down, realizing I knew little about what actually transpired between those competitors before and during their fight. But another, bigger question lingered: How do you cope with the knowledge that you may have ruined a life? My rumination inspired me to create the protagonist Jimmy Baker in my sixth novel, Bitterfrost. Thirteen years before the start of Bitterfrost, Jimmy almost killed an opponent in a hockey fight, then quit the game forever. Now he’s the Zamboni driver for an elite amateur team in his hometown of Bitterfrost in northern lower Michigan. His violent past rears up in the present when he’s accused of a brutal double murder. All but one of my novels borrow from occurrences in the so-called real world. But I don’t feel they’ve been “ripped from the headlines,” as goes that tired pejorative beloved by agents and editors. Really, what novel doesn’t build on stuff that actually happens: war and revolution, romance and rupture, murder and rape, triumph and tragedy, birth and death. Yet there is a difference between dramatizing current or past events as a biographer or historian might, and making them into something more, perhaps radically so, than their who, what, where, when, and how. It’s less about the replication of simple facts than the divining of universal truths. The saying goes that truth is stranger than fiction, but I would counter that fiction should strive to be richer than truth. At a book event years ago, I asked Dennis Lehane about the research he’d done on Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig to prepare for writing the delicious prologue in his novel, The Given Day. He said he hadn’t done much. He felt he already knew enough about the Yankee legends from a lifetime following baseball to portray them accurately enough. “I really just wanted to get the emotional truth right,” he told me. Only after drafting the scene did he go back and do some fact-checking; he learned that Ruth at the time of the tale he invented wasn’t yet the beer-bellied slugger of Murderers Row, but a slim, handsome young man. Lehane’s phrase—the emotional truth—stuck with me. My third novel, The Skeleton Box, was inspired by the story of the 1907 murder of a nun. I first read about it in an anthology of decades-old Michigan murders I bought at a beer store for five bucks. After the nun was bludgeoned to death, the killer buried the remains beneath the church. Years later, two men were ordered to dig her up, and I felt a thrilling chill (or was it a chilling thrill?) at the idea of these guys with shovels and lanterns unearthing a shadowy box of bones. Man, I had to write about that. A few years passed before I tried. By then, Michigan author Mardi Link had published a superb non-fiction book, Isadore’s Secret, about the murder of Sister Mary Janina at Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Cedar, Michigan. I bought the book and started it, while reminding myself of Lehane’s words. I decided that knowing too much about Sister Mary Janina and the sensational trial of her killer (covered by The New York Times) could chain me to facts and details that might not meld with the tale I wanted to tell. I coveted the spooky dread evoked by that skeleton box, but I didn’t want the historical tissue attached to it. In my novel, a nun named Cordelia is murdered but the circumstances, timing, and motives—essentially everything that matters—are different. I had to forget the real story to tell my real story. When I started Bitterfrost, I read a little about the 2004 Bertuzzi-Moore confrontation, but not much. There was plenty available; heck, I could have contacted Bertuzzi to ask a few questions, the kind of thing I did for forty-one years as a newspaper and magazine journalist. But I wanted Jimmy Baker to inhabit his own emotional reality. Jimmy doesn’t resume his career; he walks away from it. Along with his livelihood, he surrenders his marriage and becomes estranged from his daughter. He moves back to his hometown and takes a job that puts him close to hockey but not in it. Eventually, his past bears down on his present when he’s accused of beating to death two younger men he encountered in a Bitterfrost tavern. Throughout his travails, Jimmy embraces a mantra that, to me, hints at how a person can deal with his or her most fateful mistakes. “Every day,” Jimmy tells himself, “is a penance.” I have no idea what Todd Bertuzzi would think of that, but it doesn’t really matter. Jimmy is not Bertuzzi, and Bitterfrost tells an entirely different story—for what I hope is the best. *** View the full article

Power lies at the heart of all fantasy, written or imagined. To craft a novel of the genre is to visualize an expression of power and assign it to factions that will then weave and warp over the course of the story. Yet, our ability to conjure is naturally shackled by the limits of what we have seen, what we believe, and what we hope is possible. It is little wonder then, that fantasy gives us worlds that are altered, yet familiar—inversions, allegories, and warnings. With these carefully constructed societies come equally detailed punishment, for there can be no law without consequences for breaking it. And it is in this interplay between power, its exercise, and its fettering that the fantasy genre’s subversive nature shines. Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series is a more conservative example of this subversion. The books center in great part around a schism in magic along biological sex. All who channel magic draw it from the One Power, the driving force of all creation that’s split into male and female halves. The male half was corrupted by the Dark One in an ancient battle that has since resulted in male channelers being driven to madness over the course of using their power. It isn’t a taint of their causing, but one that makes them extremely dangerous. Naturally, it falls to female channelers of an authoritative magical organization, known as the Aes Sedai, to hunt and gentle men—essentially castrating them of magic to such severe degree that it often results in their suicide. It seems a little on the nose when stripped down to bare bones and certainly is conservative in its rigid adherence to a biological binary. Yet, the matriarchal Aes Sedai isn’t a giant middle finger aimed at men, but a cautionary tale to all social groups seeking power that maintaining it can require great evil. And while readers, especially women and those who have been societally designated as other, are encouraged to empathize with the plight of male channelers in this world, they are also shown the danger these men pose, in part because they have the literal power to threaten a millennia-old hierarchy as much as because of their tendency to destructive violence due to it. The Wheel of Time’s subversive beauty doesn’t lie in its inversion of the modern patriarchy, but the means it employs to examine two pertinent questions of every age—is the potential for destruction enough cause for punishment before crime? What happens when a faction is downtrodden for too long? In this world, it is the men who are seen as prone to mental and emotional collapse, for whom gaining power is a danger, and who are a threat to themselves and those around them and must be gentled for their own good. It matters little whether they’ve just come into their power or been using it without harm for years. The potential for damage and their inevitable future descent to madness convicts them the second they realize they can channel. The Aes Sedai have no need for trial. It’s a brutal fate in comparison to the modern justice system’s insistence on crime and proof of crime before punishment, but the Aes Sedai won’t stand by the alternative—waiting for death to come when it could have been prevented. Sarai, the protagonist of my debut novel, This Monster of Mine, ponders the same question. When does requiring crime and proof of crime cause more harm than good? One doesn’t have to cast far to think of cases where women being stalked went to the authorities for aid, only to be told that they would have to die or be grievously injured in order for action to be taken. It is this legal immovability that forces Sarai to consider a dangerous alternate course of action: allying herself with a man renowned as a mass murderer in order to enact justice. And perhaps this is the danger of legal power applied rigidly: a shift towards alternate sources of power or flat-out extremism. In the Wheel of Time’s world, the result is splinter factions such as corrupted Aes Sedai the invading Seanchan, an empire where female channelers are physically leashed as slaves to perform the Empress’s bidding. Or reactionary groups like the fanatical Children of the Light—an all-male religious military organization dedicated to the deaths of all magic-users, especially Aes Sedai. All routed towards a final battle between good and evil, and all espousing a theology where they win. Because what good is power and punishment without an underpinning of divinity? The Aes Sedai are often compared to the Bene Gesserit of Frank Herbert’s Dune series in the sense that they’re both all-female organizations with far too much influence over the workings of nations. All of which is to say that they’re an inverse of the Catholic Church, but face the often-patriarchal murmurings of a deeply distrusting public. “An Aes Sedai never lies, but the truth she speaks may not be the truth you think you hear,” says one character. A concept I found fascinating enough to incorporate into This Monster of Mine. The main male character, Kadra, is a politician and judge of great repute and a slaughterer of even greater repute, but refuses to lie—much to Sarai’s bewilderment. And rather than inspire distrust, my book examines how a male politician’s manipulation of the truth to his advantage earns him a cult of persona. I drew heavily from the Roman Tetrarchy when forming its legal basis—a system where the empire and its power were split into four and governed by two emperors (Augusti) and two understudies of a sort who’d be their designated successors (Caesars). This Monster of Mine features four equal heads of state that also serve as its Supreme Court. Judge, jury, and executioner in one. Of course, there’s another term when these branches of power are invested in one man: dictator. Or Empire as in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, where a dictator known as Cleon I makes the appalling realization that his reign is bounded by death. He consequently clones himself in several iterations to keep his glorious rule infinite. The result? Brother Dawn (Cleon at youth), Brother Day (Cleon in his prime), Brother Dusk (an aged Cleon who serves as an advisor to Day). Three heads of the same man rotating ad infinitum with memories uploaded and multiple clones at the same stage of aging prepared to take on another’s place should one be hurt or killed. Legally, such a system is a land’s worst nightmare. The law isn’t a set of written rules or strictures, but a person—Cleon—and his wants. Life under Empire is one of bitter acceptance or slavish adoration in Foundation. Both yield similar results. And yet, here too, fantasy doesn’t allow for complete despair. It isn’t long before that tricky thing, nurture versus nature, intervenes in the Cleons’ exercise of power and the cracks start to show. These cracks when subtly nudged by players who know that their part in the game is to move the needle a millimetre towards Empire’s annihilation is what changes everything. It allows us to imagine life through the reign of a powerful ruler who has suctioned up all power and wilfully desperately seeks to keep it going long past his time. Few readers can keep themselves from drawing modern-day parallels when presented with these worlds, and perhaps just as many may stop to consider what analogous place they might hold in ours. Because, sometimes, it is seeing our world mirrored and pushed towards frightening ends that allows us to think of ways to impede our own slow progression to the precipice. And as every powerful regime, fantasy and otherwise, has long noted, thought is a powerful thing. Only sleight of hand separates it from action. And it is this expanding of our vision that is fantasy’s most powerful, most subversive tool. To make us walk away from a reading or a viewing, a little more alert, a little more discomfited, hopeful, angry. Because it may be that the worlds humanity builds as battlegrounds between light and dark mirror the desperate fight for our own, and perhaps, we’re all looking for our role. My book is a drop in the bucket of this conversation. It asks us to imagine a deeply corrupt world not too dissimilar from our own and what justice looks like to people boxed in on all sides. Do they appeal to existing governmental structures and hope for aid? Do they petition lawmakers to include them in their careful categories of power and punishment and the groups allowed to exercise both? Or do they search for some other in the hopes that someday, once the dust has settled, everyone will say that this is as it should always have been? I can’t tell whether This Monster of Mine guides readers to that elusive, alternate route. But the collective of fantastical worlds humanity has built certainly will. May we all be able to see it. *** View the full article

Someone was inside his home. This has nothing to do with strange coincidences. Facts present themselves as evidence, which are then catalogued and filed away for the case file labeled: Henry Richmond Pendel. He has lived in this Greenwich Village apartment for seven of the 12 years he has worked as a literary agent. Like the industry he reigns over as one of its most reputable and well-known agents and tastemakers, he knows where everything is, and knows when a room thought to be safe might have been tampered with. It could be a book on a shelf slightly askew, a volume swapped or swiped, the scent of another body, yet even as he scans his countless bookshelves, and checks every corner, he can’t help but think about who has been here. Even if he hasn’t, it’s only a matter of time. Alexander Moyer, where are you? A name, thought to be an email containing a query and eventual author rejection, has become something more. Much more. Pendel has received a steady stream of emails, communications that started off as professional yet over the last week or so, have become odder than Pendel would like to admit. The fact that Moyer has mentioned personal details, particularly the casual namedrop of the building he lives in, has caused more than a little suspicion. This could be an omen, a warning of things to come. He has been in contact with his lawyer. The proof he has isn’t much, but it’s something. But there will need to be more. A restraining order was mentioned, and it only goes so far. This isn’t the first time he’s been under threat of a bitter author, one hurt by his rejection, yet something about this is different. Last night he fell asleep at his desk. When he woke up, the mug that had been next to him was moved. A tense overview of every room revealed its new location, casually “left” next to the bathroom sink. Pendel shrugs it off, maybe just too preoccupied to remember that he brought it with him into the bathroom. No big deal. It’s in the arrangement of his bookshelves that reveals something definite, proof of something amiss. He notices an entire six-volume set of sci-fi classics, a gift from one of his clients, missing, a gap where they had been sat alphabetized among other genre offerings. He looks for them everywhere, already late to the office, a meeting likely missed. When he checks his inbox, perhaps expecting that familiar name—Moyer—instead he sees no new emails. He should have new emails. Every time he hits refresh, there should be new queries. There might not be a lot that an agent can count on, but they can definitely count on another flurry of queries aiming to overwhelm an inbox. How odd, he thinks. Instead of checking the router and discovering that it has been unplugged, seeing yet another piece of evidence, clearly tampered with, he stares at the shelves. Maybe he’s already letting it get to him. This private invasion, one dealt with in a manner that is so manipulative it’s difficult to understand if it’s real or all in his head. “Not like Hendrix is answering my emails anyway,” he says. Excerpt continues below cover reveal. Could it be that there is something more to this person, perhaps more than a mere querying author, someone he had known, someone from his past? What are the chances that Pendel has mishandled some aspect of their interactions? The chances are high, part of Pendel’s ironclad reputation being his cutthroat nature, complete with a temper that intimidates and often limits people’s willingness to negotiate. It’s all circumstantial, he decides, and proceeds to move on with his day. Maybe some of the morning might still be salvageable. The facts, they always rise to the top. An agent finds reason in every conversation, even if it means not getting the best deal. In those inceptive steps—shower, shave, what to wear—Pendel finds temporary solace in fantasy, a vacation, wipe the slate clean. Just leave all this stress behind for a little while. Maybe this Moyer will move on to the next agent, the next person to personalize. Nobody talks about all the stalkers that orbit a public figure. Maybe he should take matters into his own hands. Forget the lawyer and seek the help of authorities. This is another writer who has let the worst of this industry warp their mind. It could be that Moyer thinks it’s he who is preventing him from becoming a published author. Pendel, the one with absolute power. Say the word and they become a household literary name. That’s something he couldn’t give any client. Sure, he can set a path, but it’s up to the author to prove that they have what it takes to be a bestseller. They got to be willing to play. To play, you have to give up something. When he’s finished showering and is about to head out, he has no time to wait for the train, so he’ll have to call a car. Never mind the ride apps; Pendel prefers this car service. A relic of a different city, you still have to call them up. They pick you up in a black luxury vehicle, complete with a driver in a suit. Pendel walks into the back room where he left his phone on a charger. That’s when he sees it: the router unplugged. Once it’s powered back up, a quick reset and in minutes, his apartment’s internet connection restored, his inbox comes to life. After calling the car service, he emails his assistant. A note-to-self that gets lost minutes after he makes it: Tell Marina what happened. Also, make sure to show your appreciation for all that she does. What would Pendel do without his tireless assistant? He’s got a voicemail. While waiting in the lobby for his driver, he goes through the messages. They’re nothing at first. White noise. And then white noise becomes breath. Breath becomes heavy breathing. The heavy breathing becomes a hint of something far more malicious. Or maybe he’s just expecting Moyer’s call. It’s him. Pendel’s imagination is so livid and overactive it might as well be fact. Jump forward to the act two climax, where he is being manipulated by a psychopathic would-be author, complete with a list of demands and a false sense of power. The messages blend together. Some are from friends and acquaintances he has no intention of ever reciprocating. Let every bond wither away to nothing. Working so much, it’s easy to do. Pendel may even prefer his aloneness. It starts to get a little difficult to know when each voicemail was left and when—except for the one. It’s the one that further confirms that it’s not all his imagination. It was Alexander Moyer. It could only be Alexander Moyer. The message in plain went something like this: “Why do you have three copies of Infinite Jest? You know you’ve never read it.” Beep. It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s enough to send a message. But then the car pulls up and he is Henry Richmond Pendel, renowned literary agent at Cooper Willis Endeavor, late and lately worried about his client list. You see, he’s not used to selling, wheeling and dealing the best possible deal for his author list. He’s not used to this dry spell, nearly a month of nothing, every editor deferring just enough to remain professional yet clear enough that nobody’s finished reading any submission, and nobody is keen to make any big moves anytime soon. It’s alarming, a possible sign of things to come. Last time something like this happened, the trade publishing industry suffered massive layoffs and restructuring. The whole system changed, seemingly overnight. But he’s Henry Richmond Pendel, and he has no reason to be concerned, given his reputation and position. Still, it’s enough of a bother to let all this concern about a vengeful author get pushed, yet again, to the corners of his consciousness. Nearly forgotten, at least for now, Pendel gets in the car and is already drafting an email response to Marina, explaining his tardiness, offering a little white lie in hopes that this meeting he’s over a half hour late for is not yet lost. And when he tells her to say that “I’m willing to talk about the possibility of also selling audio rights,” he knows it’ll buy him more time, calming the editor in wait down long enough for him to get to the office. And just in case, Pendel adds a little something extra: “You can tell him, no matter what, we’ll make it happen.” It’s the least he can do. The editor agreed to meet at the agency office. Besides, an agent is only as good as their word. __________________________________ Copyright © 2025 Michael J. Seidlinger. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved. View the full article

In Deanna Raybourn’s Killers of a Certain Age, four friends — and lethal assassins — need to outsmart the team now hunting them. Now, they’re back, out of retirement, in Kills Well with Others. This time, they’re tasked with rooting out a mole threatening to expose their identities. Here, Raybourn discusses her narrator and why we can’t get enough older sleuths. Elizabeth Held: What was it like to be to spend more time with these characters? Deanna Raybourn: It was a privilege, an absolute privilege. The characters are so much fun for me to spend time with. Because I’d already set them up in book one, Kills Well with Others gave me a chance to delve deeper into their relationships with each other and how they’re handling retirement. This book takes place two years into their retirement, and it gave me an opportunity to figure out what a new life looks like for them because they spent 40 years doing something that is not normal. They’re basically genteel psychopaths. What does normal look like when you’re not killing people for a living anymore? EH: I was surprised when I read it that they were able to retire, even a little bit. I wasn’t sure they’d really be able to give up their work. DR: I know, but the one thing I made clear in Killers of a Certain Age is they never killed for fun. They only ever kill when they are aimed in a particular direction. They were recruited as 20-year-olds with a lot of trauma by an organization that trained and focused them like little lasers. They have only ever gone after targets that were specifically vetted for them to go after. They don’t kill on the side. Billy, our main character, and our narrative voice, even says,“That’s tacky. You don’t kill for fun.” That’s what separates the pros from the amateurs. EH: Speaking of Billy, why did you choose her as the narrator? DR: I wanted to have an in with the quartet. I thought if we stayed on the outside, we wouldn’t have a close enough look at the interior landscape. I thought it would make it more immediate for me and more immediate for the readers. There’s an intimacy to that first-person viewpoint that I like, and Billy was the natural character for me to gravitate to. She does have a few things in common with me. She grew up in Texas. She is very much her own person. She’s not super sentimental. She does have a decent sense of self-awareness about her, but she also has blind spots where she doesn’t quite see herself for who she really is. I thought that would be such a fun thing to play with. EH: One of my favorite things about this series is the way the four lead characters use people’s expectations of older people against them. It’s similar to what we see in Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club books and the new “Matlock” reboot. Why do you think that’s resonating with people right now? DR: It’s a couple of different reasons. First, we are changing our idea of aging and our relationship to gaining. I was an ‘80s teen, so when The Golden Girls first debuted, you look at that those women and you think, ‘They’re all in their 70s.’ But Bea Arthur was 55. I’m going to be 57 in a couple of months, and my hair is not that color. I don’t dress like that. I go to Pilates twice a week. We are very different in our aging now than we were even 20 years ago. 40 years ago, my grandmother was younger than I am now, yet she read so old when I was a kid. It’s because as our life expectancy has extended, we have extended middle age. All of the actresses who were super hot, super gorgeous when I was a teenager —Jamie Lee Curtis, Diane Lane, Angela Bassett — are hitting 60 and they’re still super hot. That is not necessarily what we think when we think 60 years old but that’s who they are. Because we’re reframing the picture of aging, this is an opportunity for us to put those people front and center. And, not just in the type of things we had when I was a kid, were if you had a 60-year-old woman as the lead in the movie, it was going to be about her battle with breast cancer. Or all her kids have left for college, and she’s alone and sad. Or her husband left her, and she’s alone and sad. Or she’s just put her parents in a home, and she’s alone and sad. She was always alone and sad. Now, you’ve got a woman who’s 60 and she’s just living her best life. We’re starting to fill haps. I love that. When I was coming around to the idea of Killers of a Certain Age, I watched Superman with Diane Lane and Spider-Man with Marisa Tomei. They’re playing supporting characters, these kind of more nurturing, maternal roles. I want them to have capes. View the full article

Every summer my family goes camping at Sandbanks Provincial Park on the sandy shores of Lake Ontario. There is nothing we look forward to more than those hot summer days spent swimming, playing beach volleyball, hiking wooded trails, and playing charades by the campfire. We disconnect from our devices, from the world, and we reconnect with each other and nature. We go barefoot by day and star watch by night. It’s idyllic. But for thriller writers, the idyllic is also fertile ground for inspiration. We can’t help ourselves. We like nothing more than to mess with the sweet things in life, to rattle the familiar, to make the comfortable uncomfortable. And there’s something about camping that feels vulnerable. Campers are at the mercy of the elements, and there are no locked doors or security systems to keep us safe. Someone could easily disappear, suddenly plucked from their tent never to be seen again. It’s a gold mine for a thriller writer. And it’s exactly what kicks off my latest novel, Buried Road. A woman’s boyfriend goes missing on their annual summer camping trip to Sandbanks Provincial Park—yes, that very same park. Three years later, the woman returns to the scene of the crime with her daughter in tow when the camper he was driving is suddenly found. A trail of clues leads them to uncover dark secrets hidden in the shadows of a thriving tourist town in the middle of summer’s high season. Thwarted at every turn, the mother-daughter duo is led ever closer to danger as they search for their missing loved one. Here are five haunting thrillers that kickstart when someone disappears on a camping trip, turning the happy into the horrifying faster than you can roast a marshmallow. One Step Too Far by Lisa Gardiner A bachelor party camping trip goes horribly wrong when the groom disappears. That’s the backdrop of Gardiner’s fast-paced thriller that brings back missing persons’ investigator, Frankie Elkin. Five years after Tim went missing, his family and friends gather for one last search of the woods. The story is full of unexpected twists and features a troop of complicated characters who gradually reveal more of themselves the deeper they hike. But the haunting wilderness setting isn’t the only scary thing they’ll encounter along the way. Something darker awaits. Tell Me What Really Happened by Chelsea Sedoti Sedoti’s YA thriller adopts a distinctive, well-crafted style, using first-person police interview transcripts to tell the gripping story of five high school friends who went camping one weekend in the woods near Salvation Creek. One of their friends disappeared and chapter by chapter, question after question, the teens testimony paints a vivid picture of what really happened—or at least what they say really happened. The novel’s unreliable narrator vibes keep you guessing until the very end. Cold Fear by Rick Mofina The second novel in Mofina’s Tom Reed series sees the oft-troubled reporter sent to cover the story of a young girl gone missing while camping with her family in Glacier National Park. An extensive search is launched, the police and FBI investigate, complex relationships begin to unravel as secrets come under threat and menace lurks nearby. With time running out for the young girl, this heart-pounding thriller feels ripped from the headlines—which Mofina deftly plays upon in his explorations of the roles of both the press and police. The Wild Coast by Lin Andersen A young woman’s body is found in a shallow grave along Scotland’s rugged west coast and Forensic scientist, Rhona MacLeod is tasked with examining the scene. She soon discovers that another woman has gone missing at a campsite nearby. It seems someone with sinister motives has come to wreak havoc on this the idyllic coastal camping destination. Creepy stick figures, missing girls, and breathtaking scenery abound as Andersen skillfully intertwines two seemingly unrelated mysteries into one riveting thriller. Sleeping Bear by Connor Sullivan Cassie is an army vet and young widow. She’s decided to get away before she starts her new job. Cue camping trip in the Alaskan wilderness. Cue disappearance without a trace. That’s the set up for Sullivan’s nail-biting thriller. When Cassie doesn’t turn up for work, her father finds out people go missing in that area all the time. He heads to Alaska to see for himself and to help with the investigation. But when Cassie wakes up in a remote Russian prison, it turns out this isn’t some hiker-lost-in-the-woods story, but instead, it’s a chilling, break-neck-paced cold war saga that never lets up. *** View the full article

Novelists don’t need all the facts. We’re illusionists, after all. A little misdirection, a little sleight of hand, and suddenly the trick becomes real. Reporters don’t have that luxury. They deal in facts—or at least, that’s what they want you to think. I should know. I fall for them every time. I like to talk. They like to listen. They press, I spill, and before I know it, I’ve laid all my cards on the table. One in particular still lingers in my mind. We didn’t last long, but I let him get further than most. A dimly lit dive bar. A plate of fries between us. Late winter, the windows fogged from the heat inside. His gaze cut through the red neon glow—not like a man picturing my pleated skirt on his floor, but like a detective studying a suspect, figuring out the angles. Every question was deliberate. My answers slipped past my defenses like smoke under a locked door. I let it happen. He told me all his tricks—how he’d corner his sources, how he’d make them talk, how he’d play his hand just right and make them think they were winning. He laid it all out like a confession. Maybe it was a warning. Maybe a test. I knew exactly how it worked. Should’ve seen it coming. But I still gave him everything he wanted. Like a real sucker. And I loved every minute. That’s why journalists make damn good detectives—but whether they’re heroes or villains depends on where their moral compass tilts. Some chase justice, some chase the byline, and some just like the game. When a Harlem torch singer goes missing in my debut Glitter in the Dark, the only woman on the case is Ginny Dugan, an advice columnist with bigger ambitions. She knows how to ask the right questions, press where it hurts, push past locked doors. That’s what reporters do best. But the deeper she goes, the more the story closes in around her—until the truth isn’t just something to expose, it’s something she has to survive. That’s what makes reporter sleuths so damn compelling. Sure, they can cut through the noise, break past the polished surface to find the dark, troubling secrets lurking underneath. But even more compelling is their weakness. Because no matter how sharp, how relentless, how cool they seem, there’s always something that cracks them open. Some stories cut too deep. Some truths cost more than they’re worth. And some don’t just leave a mark—they pull you under. If you love characters who push too far, ask the wrong questions, and end up paying the price, this list is for you. Keep reading for some of my favorite reporter sleuths, and drop your own in the comments. Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn A decade after her little sister’s death, Camille Preaker has carved almost every inch of her body with words, a testament to the pain she’s never truly left behind. Now, working as a reporter in Chicago, she’s sent back to her hometown to cover the brutal murders of two young girls—both found with their teeth removed. Flynn’s gothic-noir masterpiece drips with unease, the kind that settles in your stomach and lingers long after the last page. Camille is a journalist, yes, but she’s also deeply compromised: haunted, unreliable, and dangerously susceptible to the very forces she’s investigating. As she navigates the small-town minefield of gossip, secrets, and her own nightmarish family dynamics, the case becomes as much about her own survival as it is about finding the killer. Her weapon of choice is language—words define her, consume her, both on the page and on her skin. If she can just find the right words, maybe she can make sense of the mess she’s drowning in. But the deeper she digs, the more the town—and her own past—seems poised to swallow her whole… The Horizontal Man by Helen Eustis At first glance, The Horizontal Man seems like a classic campus murder mystery: an English professor is found dead, and newspaper reporter Jack Donnely is on the scene, eager for a salacious scoop. But this is no ordinary detective novel. Instead, Eustis delivers a sharp, psychological noir where the mind games are as dangerous as the crime itself. Chasing headlines over hard truths, Donnely initially manipulates a grieving student’s confession for the sake of selling papers. But his ambitions take a turn when he meets Kate Innes, a sharp-witted student editor who won’t let him get away with it. Kate is tough—cynical yet idealistic, more of a detective than the so-called journalist she finds herself teaming up with. And as Donnely is drawn to Kate, he finds himself pulled away from sensationalism and toward something resembling real justice. What makes The Horizontal Man stand out in the noir canon isn’t just its setting—an insular, neurotic university filled with academics teetering on the edge of mental collapse—but its ahead-of-its-time exploration of psychology and identity. There are two mysteries at play here: the murder itself, and the inner workings of a cast of characters whose desires, fears, and hidden selves threaten to destroy them all. Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman Maddie Schwartz has spent the last two decades playing by the rules as a wife, a mother, a well-behaved woman who fit neatly into the expectations of 1960s Baltimore. But now, she wants something more. Something bigger. She wants a story. It starts with a missing girl who vanished without a trace. When Maddie’s intuition leads her to the child’s body, she sees her opening. The discovery earns her a foothold at The Star, and she reinvents herself as a reporter, chasing leads, pushing past locked doors, refusing to take no for an answer. But one story isn’t enough. Soon, she’s digging into the disappearance of Cleo Sherwood, a young Black woman whose murder barely made the papers. Maddie isn’t just looking for the truth—she’s trying to find her place in the world, rewriting the roles assigned to her by the life she left behind. Lippman’s kaleidoscopic noir unfolds like a newspaper—a shifting patchwork of voices, from Cleo’s grieving friends and family to the men who crossed paths with her, to Cleo herself, watching from beyond the grave as Maddie exposes secrets best left buried. This is a book about power. Who gets to ask the questions? Who deserves the answers? Whose story is Maddie really telling—and at what cost? Lippman builds a deeply researched, atmospheric portrait of 1960s Baltimore, steeped in its racial and gender politics, layered with ambition, guilt, and the uneasy truth that journalism doesn’t just report on the world—it changes it. Sometimes for the better. Sometimes not. The Jasmine Trade by Denise Hamilton The murder of Marina Lu looks like a robbery gone bad. A teenage girl found dead in her car, her bridal gowns still in the backseat, her diamond ring catching the last of the LA sun. But Los Angeles Times reporter Eve Diamond knows better. She follows the story into the world of “parachute kids”—wealthy Asian teenagers sent to America for education and opportunity, left behind in mansions while their parents run businesses overseas. Money doesn’t keep them safe. Neither does privilege. Marina had both, and she still wound up dead. Eve has a knack for spotting the cracks beneath the city’s surface. The deeper she digs, the darker the picture gets. What was Marina doing with a much older fiancé? Why won’t her father answer any questions? And why does the trail keep leading Eve into a far uglier subculture—where young women like Marina aren’t debutantes, but property? This is Los Angeles noir at its sharpest—a world of power and isolation, a neon-lit dream that rots from the inside out. Hamilton writes LA like she owns it, laying bare the places most people don’t want to see: the empty mansions, the late-night diners where secrets trade hands, and the rooms where silence is bought and paid for. The Mayor of Maxwell Street by Avery Cunningham Penelope “Nelly” Sawyer has spent the past year writing under a pseudonym, slipping into the streets of 1920s Chicago to report on the realities of life under Jim Crow for The Chicago Defender. But when her editor discovers her identity—a wealthy Black debutante making her entrance into high society—he doubts her abilities. To prove herself, she’s given an impossible assignment: uncover the identity of the Mayor of Maxwell Street, a shadowy figure lurking in Chicago’s vice-ridden underworld. This is an atmospheric historical noir that contrasts the gilded excess of affluent Black society with the dangers of the city’s underground. As a self-taught journalist, Nelly relies on sharp observation and pure instinct, even as the men in her life—her editor, her suitors, the powerful figures she investigates—try to box her into a role that suits them. But Nelly isn’t just chasing a story—she’s fighting to define herself before the world does it for her. The novel crackles with both danger and romance, as Nelly follows the trail of the elusive Mayor, navigating not just prejudice and corruption, but the flames of an attraction that could either unravel her or set her free. Like Nelly, Ginny Dugan is chasing more than just a story. She wants respect. Recognition. The chance to prove she’s more than what people expect. In Glitter in the Dark, she’s stuck writing fluff for Photoplay when she witnesses a kidnapping in a Harlem speakeasy. No one believes her. But she knows what she saw—and her pursuit of this story drags her from underworld hideouts to Broadway’s brightest lights, where every answer has a price. If you like your mysteries with a sharp-eyed journalist, a world that glitters on the surface but rots underneath, and a truth that won’t stay buried, Glitter in the Dark might be your next big scoop. ** View the full article

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Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Robert Jackson Bennett, A Drop of Corruption (Del Rey) “Wonderfully clever and compulsively readable . . . another winning blend of fantasy and classic detection.” –Publishers Weekly Julia Bartz, The Last Session (Emily Bestler/Atria) “Dark and entertaining, THE LAST SESSION had me compulsively flipping pages. Julia Bartz’s latest thriller explores the allure of wellness cults, the nature of trauma and healing, and all of the ways in which therapy can go wrong. If you enjoyed THE WRITING RETREAT as much as I did, you will love Bartz’s latest as well!” –Lauren Ling Brown Bryan Gruley, Bitterfrost (Severn House) “Visceral, vivid, and suspenseful, Bitterfrost immerses readers in a chilly ― and chilling ― world of lost dreams and deadly feuds. I was instantly and completely engrossed. Masterfully done.” –Meg Gardiner Sara Foster, When She Was Gone (Blackstone) “Foster is back! When She Was Gone is a master class of suspense, an edge-of-your-seat story that kept me up all night.” –Dervla McTiernan Jordan LaHaye Fontenot, Home of the Happy (Mariner) “Simultaneously lurid and lyrical, gothic and graceful, surreal and serene. . . [Home of the Happy is] memoir, reportage, and investigative journalism, wrapped in a propulsive narrative that tells the tale of a family and a place across time.” –Country Roads Lise Olsen, The Scientist and the Serial Killer (Random House) “Lise Olsen is not only a masterful investigative reporter, she’s one hell of a storyteller. Her sentences are completely dramatic, her character descriptions spot on. I felt a pit in my stomach reading this book.” –Skip Hollandsworth Shalini Abeysekera, This Monster of Mine (Union Square) “A relentless and beautifully balanced romantasy/legal thriller, offering blood and hope in equal measures.” –Library Journal View the full article

I’ve long been fascinated by darkly feminist novels, books that keep me riveted by—and sometimes rooting for—complicated characters who embrace moral grayness and revenge, or who simply do what must be done in impossible situation. Whether you see these characters as anti-heroines or just women trying to survive is a Rorschach test for where your true sympathies lie, making these books ripe for debate in book clubs and Reddit threads. And either way: who can deny the vicarious thrill of experiencing life through the fictional eyes of a woman who doesn’t care what’s expected of her; who breaks rules and takes charge of her destiny by any means possible, whether right or wrong? Adult fiction has been blessed with an abundance of darkly feminist thrillers, from Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll to the more speculative Vox by Christina Dalcher and The Power by Naomi Alderman. But darkly feminist reads aren’t just for adults—and they don’t necessarily feature overtly polarizing questions or characters (like Gone Girl’s Amazing Amy). The darkness can be more subtle. The feminism can be a vibe. In the multifaceted world of YA specifically, I consider darkly feminist thrillers to be books that highlight feminist perspectives or themes without glossing over the darker side of life and its harsh realities. They incorporate aspects of traditional thrillers and crime novels, with a heroine unraveling a secret about her world (and those closest to her). They use layers and nuance to help make their point—and they often incorporate speculative elements, offering a wide scope of high-concept plots, imaginative settings, and fantasy to captivate readers. In my own young adult debut, Nothing Bad Happens Here, I explore nautical myths, seaside crime, wealth inequality, the joyful chaos of female friendships, and the depths of feminine rage as my heroine is forced to make some bold, hard choices in a world where there are no black-and-white answers. Daughters of Eve by Lois Duncan was my first darkly feminist read. I was in middle school when I picked it up, and it shocked me at the time. The teenagers in Duncan’s books have always struck me as grown-up women, their cares and responsibilities so much heavier than mine, but I was quickly drawn into the story of a group of teens under the spell of a charismatic teacher. When bad things started happening to one of the female characters—and when this close-knit group went to dangerous lengths to get well-deserved revenge—I felt uneasy and confused… and so intrigued that I couldn’t stop reading. The writing is urgent and intense, rivaled only by an ending delivered in a “where are they now” pastiche that haunts me decades later. Published in 1979 and banned at times for the themes depicted and alluded to, this novel feels like the matriarch to the film Promising Young Woman (featuring two of my favorite actors, Jennifer Coolidge and Molly Shannon!) or to Mindy McGinnis’ young adult novel, The Female of the Species. The Female of the Species begins with small-town protagonist Alex, who admits right up front that she knows how to kill someone—and that she doesn’t feel bad about it. A shocking and disturbing revelation, until the reader discovers the reason why. But this isn’t a celebration of teen vigilantism, no matter how well-deserved. Told in alternating viewpoints that explore Alex’s sister’s murder, this novel is violent and edgy . . . not for shock value, but in the service of telling a powerful story that doesn’t shy away from themes of anger, the legacy of crime, and the dangers of rape culture. This novel will leave readers reeling at its heart-pounding ending. On the surface, The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton is a completely different read: a YA fantasy that wraps the reader up in a lush narrative with stellar worldbuilding and romantic will-they-won’t-they subplots. Camellia Beauregard is a Belle, a young woman who’s chosen to wield the power of Beauty and who vies to become the Queen’s favorite in a cut-throat court. But dark secrets line the gilded halls of the palace, and Camellia will have to make a dangerous decision. Come for the tiny elephants and extravagant gowns, stay for the plot twists. But this page-turner is more than skin-deep: it’s bursting with themes of beauty and pain . . . and will leave readers thinking about the commodification of personal appearance, and how images can be used to manipulate (in ways that feel extremely relevant in a world awash in Sephora hauls, beauty filters, and plastic surgery). This skillful portrayal of a hierarchical, image-obsessed society is well worth sharing and discussing with the teen and adult readers in your lives. Another novel whose themes feel particularly timely is Needy Little Things by Chenelle Desamours. This speculative YA mystery/thriller features a teen with a unique, secret gift: Sariyah Bryant can actually hear what people need. But right after she helps a friend fulfill one of their needs, that friend disappears—and that’s not the first time someone close to her has gone missing. Facing the police and media’s lack of urgency in the case, Sariyah decides to investigate with only the help of her friends. As she tries to unravel the case, she’s also dealing with tough situations at home: her mother loses her job while her brother grapples with a serious illness, and Sariyah must make a fateful decision. This isn’t a story of revenge or rebellion, but it’s an unflinching look at the compromises and burdens young women face (in addition to dealing with themes of racism, injustice, and mental health). This riveting mystery will keep you turning the pages and reaching for a Kleenex. Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand uses speculative and horror elements to tell a more overtly feminist story about a town where girls have disappeared for decades, their bodies never to be found. Rumors abound that they’ve been taken by a monster, an evil presence that belies the beauty of the island, and close friends Marion, Zoey, and Val are thrown into darkness and conflict when Marion’s sister Charlotte joins the ranks of the missing girls. This eerie novel blends thriller elements with the complexities of female friendship, love, and feminine rage as long-buried secrets and horrific truths are unearthed by three main characters facing both human and supernatural darkness. Readers will be drawn in by the atmospheric, twisting mysteries of the island of Sawkill and be heartened by themes of courage, inner strength, and solidarity. And, of course, there’s always Nancy Drew. Perhaps the plots are less dark, but this iconic “girl sleuth” is a feminist icon nonetheless. *** View the full article

I began writing about books for the New York Times in late 2023 and officially began my tenure as the horror fiction columnist for the New York Times Book Review in January on 2024. I love that gig with all my heart, but it often makes me miss something else I love with all my heart: crime fiction. Sure, I’m still reading crime (and noir, thrillers, mystery suspense, true crime, etc), but I’m not writing about what I read, and writing about what I read is what I’ve always done. Solution? Start a column to talk about crime fiction. The perfect place? CrimeReads, a place that has supported me from the start. Yeah, I’m happy to be here. Let’s talk about some new books. Steve Cavanagh, Witness 8 (Atria) While they are all different, there’s one thing that all Steve Cavanagh novels share: you start reading, you’re hooked. Witness 8, Cavanagh’s latest, is no different. In Witness 8, the eight entry in the Eddie Flynn Series, Eddie and the gang are back and trying to tackle a complex murder case that went down in one of the city’s most affluent neighborhoods. John Jackson is innocent, and Eddie knows it, but the truth is weaker than Jackson’s DNA on the murder weapon, which was found in his home. While Eddie works on getting to the bottom of the Jackson case, he must also stay busy keeping himself alive because some fine members of New York’s Finest want him dead, and they’ve put a bounty on his head. With the author’s knack for pacing, action, dialogue, and humor in full display here, Witness 8 is exactly the kind of gritty, funny, violent, carefully plotted narrative we’ve come to expect from Cavanagh while also being its own thing. The story is packed with tension and more questions than answers. Ruby, a character that quickly becomes half the heart of the story, is an intriguing character whose agenda drives the plot but also a vehicle through with Cavanagh explores identity and belonging in the world of the ultrawealthy. Reading an Eddie Flynn novel is never not fun, and Witness 8 is a blast even when Bloch’s not around. Jean Echenoz, Command Performance Translated by Mark Polizzotti (NYRB) Jean Echenoz’s Command Performance is an amazing novel. In terms of genre, it’s a sort of detective novel, but in the same way that a tomato is a fruit; sure, but it’s not the same. Gerard Fulmard lost his job as a former flight attendant under some bad circumstances and desperation pushed him to try his hand at being a private detective. It took a while to get his first case, and it quickly turned into a dangerous disaster. In the aftermath of that fiasco, Gerard starts working for a shady political splinter group. Once in, Gerard’s quick, bizarre journey inside the group will lead him to murder, amongst other things. There’s good weird and bad weird, and this novel is the really good kind. Echenoz’s prose is like a wild, unpredictable animal that’s also very colorful, so you read and enjoy it even if there at times when you’re not exactly sure what’s happening and wouldn’t dare a guess as to what comes next. Gerard is a strange man, the story starts with a bizarre catastrophe, and every character in the novel has a quirky biography and unique personality. That Echenoz weaves these elements into a satisfying read is a testament to his talents as a storyteller. Hannah Deitch, Killer Potential (William Morrow) Hannah Deitch’s Killer Potential is an impressive debut that shows its author has exactly that. Evie Gordon was on the path to greatness from early on. Smart child. Gifted. Talented. Good grades. Went to a great university. Then, life kicked her in the teeth with reality. Evie now makes a living as an SAT tutor rich kids in Los Angeles. She spends hours in fancy living rooms and posh kitchens and enjoys peeing in magazine-worthy bathrooms. Besides that, Evie’s life isn’t that exciting, and the bright future she was promised–all that upward social mobility her education would provide–is nowhere to be found. And then everything changes. Evie shows up to a tutoring session on a Sunday and finds an open door and a quiet house. A few minutes later, she discovers the bodies. And then a woman trapped in a closet and crying for help. After one more surprisingly violent encounter in the house, Evie and the odd, quiet woman she rescued are on the run, now not only scared and confused but also murder suspects with no clue about who the killer could be and nowhere to go. The first third of this novel is amazing and the voice is an electric, snarky marvel. The action, voice, violence, pace, tension, and the way Deitch manages the mysterious woman, her story, and the way she comes out of her shell are all great elements here. Unfortunately, the narrative loses its power halfway through as it switches into a sort of introspective love story that lacks the intensity of the start. I find it really cool when a novel gives me very specific things and I can connect with them immediately, and this novel did that. Like Evie–and like Deitch–I worked as a tutor for rich kids. In my case, it was in Austin. Deitch nails the awkwardness and the dynamics of that job perfectly and with the perfect amount of cynicism, which is a lot. Killer Potential is solid, faulty debut that explodes at first and then fizzles out, but it contains enough good stuff to make want to check out whatever Deitch does next, and that’s not something all debuts pull off. View the full article