Wait For It… Crime Novels

This is a story we’ve seen before, the “desperate” social climber, but finally with a voice that isn’t a white girl/woman like we are so used to.

From a young age Ivy Lin picks up the habit of stealing things while growing up near Boston and coveting the wealthier things including the son of a political family, Gideon Speyer. That is until her life takes a swift change and she’s shipped off to China, again to face the vast difference between wealth and poverty.

Now as an adult, still wanting the things she believes she deserves, she has an opportunity to once again make her way into Gideon Speyer’s life and have what she covets. But can she be what she pretends long enough to have it?

This does a great job of exploring class, race, obsession, and an antihero within an interesting story as you wonder: will anyone come away from this better?

(TW child abuse/ brief mention of eating disorder, detail/ partner abuse scene/ brief suicidal thought)

A new Megan Abbott book is always something to celebrate! And once again we have an obsession (ballet) and a constant pulsing tension throughout the book that is impossible to ignore. It’s a story about sisters and family and being haunted by the past when you can’t find a footing in the present. A ballet studio was left to two sisters, Dara and Marie, when their parents died in a car accident. Rounding out their family is also Dara’s husband Charlie, who grew up with them and moved in with the family as a teenager. After a fire in the dance studio, they hire a contractor for extensive renovations. But not everyone is on board, and the timing with the ever chaotic and stressful yearly show of The Nutcracker cranks the tension even higher. We watch the constant push and pull of Marie and Dara’s relationship as everything around them, including a new person in their tight-knit group, throws everything off balance. Something is going to give…

Abbott is a master at taking high intensity settings–in this case a ballet studio–and showing all its cracks as the toll on, mostly, girls and women is explored. If you’re looking for a suspenseful crime novel that will stay with you, here’s your next read. Bonus: Abbott has an extensive and fantastic backlist of titles (cheerleading; gymnastics; science; organized crime). Double bonus: her novel Dare Me has a great adaptation that really brought the novel to life and it’s currently streaming on Netflix.

(TW disordered eating and eating disorders/ past alcoholism/ sexual abuse of teen/ suicide scene, detail/ past domestic abuse)

This blends genres and also walks the line of social horror, with the emphasis on social and a sprinkling of horror. I’ve seen a lot of early marketing with “thriller” attached to this and while social thriller can work, for those who hear thriller and think action packed, plot driven, or everything-goes-boom, this is not intended to be that.

It is disquieting and there is a crime, but you’ll have to wait for it. The story takes place in publishing, literally, as Nella Rogers is an editorial assistant. She’s also the only Black woman at work so she’s excited when a new Black woman, Hazel, is hired. But she doesn’t seem to immediately gel with Hazel even though she tries and she can’t help but wonder why. Many of her issues at work and now with Hazel make her think “it could be something or it could be explained away as nothing” which leaves Nella never sure about what is happening. And then she finds a note telling her to leave…

For fans of inside publishing works and past-and-present narratives who like character-driven stories, this should deliver and surprise.