(37) Penpal by Dathan Auerbach (2012, 252 pages)(mystery/horror). Paper book + re-read. This one was on my shelf and I remembered it being a kind of bizarre tour-de-force but I couldn’t remember the details, so I took it on vacation with me. The narrator relates a number of isolated stories and anecdotes from his childhood and early adolescence, cutting (seemingly randomly) back and forth in time, including yes, one from a mysterious penpal. At first it’s not clear how the different stories are related, and then, little by little, as the story proceeds, the details begin to resolve and puzzle pieces start falling into place. While most of the book likely won’t strike you as horror as you’re reading, the ending places it firmly in that category, so just know that going in. And yet, while the ending horrifying and tragic, I still looked back at the entire work and went “WOOOOOW, now that was a masterclass in artfully weaving together details, using language to deftly create a mood, and reveals that aren’t recognizable as reveals until chapters.” If you decide to read this one, I’d recommend avoiding learning anything about it and going in as cold as possible. Capital-d DARK but still utterly brilliant.
(38) The Mystery of Hollow Places by Rebecca Podos (2016, 320 pages)(young adult mystery/drama). Paper book + re-read. Another one I took on vacation because I found it on my shelf and couldn’t really remember it. Imogene Scott has never known her mother; her mysteriously troubled mother met her father, a forensic pathologist, when she came to identify a body, then left them when Imogene was a baby. Now an author of medical mystery novels, her father as disappeared on seventeen-year-old Imogene and her stepmother and Imogene is sure he’s gone in search of her mother. I just…couldn’t relate to this book at all. I mean on the one hand it’s about a teenage girl feeling a kind of emptiness about the mystery of where she comes from and wanting answers about her family’s history, but on the other hand it was kind of about…nothing. I wasn’t really that invested in the characters or finding out what happened and only finished it because it was short and I was on a plane with it.
(39) Mystic River by Dennis Lehane (2001, 416 pages) (crime/mystery, drama). Audiobook. This one made it on to my to-read list with its description as a classic psychological thriller/murder mystery, but it’s actually loaded with deep human drama as well. As boys, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus, and Dave Boyle were best friends, until one day Dave got into a car with a creepy stranger and reappeared a few days later changed forever. Twenty-five years later, Sean is a homicide detective and ex-con Jimmy runs the town corner store; when Jimmy’s teenage daughter is murdered, Dave comes home covered in someone else’s blood, and Sean is assigned to investigate, the three find themselves negotiating not only the brutal present but also their tragic pasts. Dark and hard-hitting, but definitely a master work.
(40) Watching You by Lisa Jewell (2018, 324 pages) (crime/mystery/thriller). Paper book. The story opens with a murder; we then spend the rest of the novel finding out who is dead and how the murder came to pass. We’re introduced to a cast of characters, all with their own secrets–Tom Fitzwilliam, headmaster-cum-school-turnaround-wizard; Joey Mullen, Tom’s new cute neighbor who is quickly developing a crush on him; Freddie, Tom’s tech prodigy teen son who has noticed Joey’s odd behavior; Jenna Tripp, a student of Tom’s who lives on the same street and is suspicious of Mr. Fitzwilliam for other reasons; Jenna’s paranoid mother who is sure Fitzwilliam is stalking her. The story jumps back and forth between the present and twenty years earlier, with a young schoolgirl documenting her crush on a young Mr. Fitzwilliam’s. Lisa Jewell is always smart and entertaining, though this one was perhaps a bit dark and far-fetched for my preferences. Still an enjoyable twisty-turny crime/mystery/thriller.
(41) The Night Shift by Alex Finlay (2022, 320 pages)(crime/mystery/thriller). Audiobook. On New Year’s Eve 1999 at a Blockbuster Video in New Jersey, four teenagers working the night shift are attacked, with only one left alive and the only suspect gone without a trace. Fifteen years later, history seems to repeat itself–teen employees working the night shift at an ice cream store in the same town are attacked in a similar fashion, and again only one survives. Now the Blockbuster survivor-turned-trauma-therapist, the brother of the fugitive suspect, and the FBI agent assigned to the ice cream shop case must figure out the truth about both nights before tragedy strikes again. Not a Riley Sager book but sure does read like one in places!
(42) El Rostro de la Sombra by Alfredo Gómez Cerdá (2004, 160 pages)(young adult drama). Paper book. I picked this up in a bookstore in Santiago de Compostela after finishing the books I'd brought on the trip. Three teenagers devise a drunken plan to make a viral video by throwing rocks at cars on a dangerous road in hopes of causing and recording a dramatic reaction. But the car they pick ends up rolling off the road, Adrián soon learns that the driver was his girlfriend's mother, and she is now in critical condition. The boys and particularly Adrián wrestle with whether or not to come clean, particularly now that his girlfriend is demanding they track down those responsible for the video. I am not a fast reader in Spanish so this took me a LOOONG time in spite of the fact that it was only xx pages! It's hard for me to both read in a foreign language while also processing the story from a purely recreational standpoint, and not being a native speaker, it's hard for me to comment on how well-written it was. But the story was interesting and I enjoyed reading it.
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