This mystery follows Connie after the death of her adoptive mother, Eve. Eve left the majority of her wealth and Vermont estate to Connie's twin sister Lisa while Connie got a little red house in New Mexico where Eve's daughter disappeared years ago. Eve had never mentioned New Mexico or this house to Connie or Lisa but Eve's will has a long list of rules both daughters must follow and the two chalk it up to just another one of Eve's cruel psychological games that they grew up with. But once Connie arrives at the house she finds a mysterious caretaker living in her back yard and a string of murders that no one in town wants to talk about. As Connie starts to ask around town about these murders, she finds that these crimes and Eve might be more intertwined than she originally thought.
TW/CW: death of a parent, suicide, sexual assault, psychological abuse, child abuse
I loved this twisty, dark read. This story starts off a little messed up and pretty much just gets darker as it goes along and I was 100% on board for that journey. From the title and cover, I wasn't expecting this to get as dark as it did. This is not the darkest book I've ever read, and a lot of the worst stuff is done off page, but the whole book had a really great creep factor and twisty reveals. I read through a few reviews after I finished and one said that this felt like a limited series on HBO and I very much agree with this.
I really enjoyed the dual timeline of this read, especially since we know of the connection before Connie does. This allows the reader to start guessing about connections and Eve's motivations before Connie can start piecing things together - which is always fun for me with these mysteries. We also get to see two versions of the same town and there are numerous overlaps between Eve and Connie's stories. We also get two sides of Eve - one from her timeline and the other from Connie's reflections on Eve as a parent. I also liked how each timeline had their own core mystery that ended up being connected. Sometimes these dual timeline mysteries can feel like watching two characters take the exact same steps, but in this case there wasn't a whole lot of overlap in the main mysteries (Eve looking for her daughter, Connie investigating murders). Of course, the two timelines do converge but it didn't feel repetitive when the story flipped back and forth.
This book is full with complex, often unlikeable characters which I'm finding is my preference with these gritty, darker mysteries. I loved the way the townfolk treat Connie as an outsider where they are generally polite, but also everyone tells her that she'd be better off leaving for various reasons. Connie does her best to integrate into this town and she slowly does find some sort of community in this town. This is contrasted by Eve's visit where she was more concerned about finding her daughter than with making friends in this town. We didn't get a lot of fluffy details about the side characters, but the details we do get are pretty significant and again highlight the horror under the surface of this town. I also enjoyed how the characters we see aren't overly concerned with being liked. Eve, Connie, and the side characters were all unapologetic and weren't interested in sugar coating anything. This type of character dynamic made for an interesting mystery read because while the puzzle pieces we do get are few and far between, it made each step forward in the investigation feel like a real win.
This is one of those mysteries where there are a lot of plot conveniences that, in hindsight, maybe don't feel entirely 'realistic'. There are some reviews out there that point these instances out as something that they didn't like. For me, however, I wasn't bothered by these because of the way the whole story was built up in layers. One non-spoilery example is that no one in the town wants to talk to Connie about these murders, but yet many people would give her little tidbits of information - just enough for her to research and further the plot. Is this dynamic a little strange? Sure. Did it bother me? Nope. Andersson spends a lot of time slowly exposing the underbelly of this town and, by the time we finish with the end reveals, it did feel like everything made sense in this world and I could understand why these characters didn't want to talk to Connie.
Going back to my opening comment about this feeling like a limed HBO series, the reveals and solution to the mystery do lean toward the dramatic and there are specific examples where I do question how believable that situation would be. However, Andersson does a good job addressing and explaining the more over-the-top scenarios on the page. That being said, I was fully invested while I was reading and these thoughts only really came once I finished the book and was gathering my thoughts for this review. A lot of my enjoyment of these mystery/thriller books come from being surprised at some (or all) of the reveals and this book certainly hit that mark. Andersson has done such a great job of building up the layers of this mystery between the two timelines and by the end, I was itching to see how it all comes together. There were a number of loose threads that came together at the end and I really think it worked on all fronts. I also loved the way some of the reveals answered one question, but then also caused other questions to be raised immediately.
Overall, I really enjoyed this read and had a great time. I loved how dark and sinister the story got and how this little town was the perfect backdrop for this creepy story. Sure, some of the plot points and reveals might lean a bit too far into coincidental-territory for some, but I had such a fun time reading and I was so invested in the story that it didn't bother me at all.
Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the ARC
Expected publication date is December 6, 2022
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