A stunning, engaging subversion of the Bundy myth—and the true-crime genre.
This thinly veiled fictionalization of Ted Bundy’s attack on a Florida State University sorority begins with the horror rather than making it the climax.
As president of her sorority, Pamela Schumacher is used to staying up late to deal with paperwork while her sisters are out partying. The night of Jan. 15, 1978, is no different. Jarred awake at 3 a.m. after having fallen asleep with her clothes on, she hears running footsteps and sees a man heading for the front door. He can’t see her in the shadows—a fact that turns out to save her life, rendering her the only eyewitness to a horrible crime and a notorious criminal, “a man who murdered thirty-five women and escaped prison twice.” The novel goes on to follow several alternating timelines: From Pamela’s perspective, it builds from the day of the sorority murders and also follows her return trip to Tallahassee more than 30 years later in response to a mysterious letter. These chapters are interspersed with the 1974 story of Ruth Wachowsky, believed by her girlfriend, Tina Cannon, to have been one of the killer’s earlier victims. Knoll makes an interesting—and powerful—choice not to name Bundy at any point; Pamela asserts that she “vowed to stop using [his name]” because “there isn’t anything exceptionally clever” about him. Choosing not to name him deflates the myth of the monster, of the charmer, of the criminal genius that people often consider Bundy to be. As the title indicates, this novel belongs to the women: the ones killed because they were too kind to reject an “injured” man asking for help; the ones who lost people they loved; the ones who ultimately had to look him in the eye and not let it destroy their lives. There are twin threads of mystery that lead readers through the maze: the rumor of a suppressed confession tape and Ruth’s story. But in the end, it’s the latter that’s so much more important than the former. In this world of true-crime mania, Knoll knows that every choice—and every name—matters.
A stunning, engaging subversion of the Bundy myth—and the true-crime genre.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781501153228
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Marysue Rucci Books
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
PERSPECTIVES
A pulpy throwback that shines a light on abuses even magic can’t erase.
Hung out to dry by the elders who betrayed them, a squad of pregnant teens fights back with old magic.
Hendrix has a flair for applying inventive hooks to horror, and this book has a good one, chock-full with shades of V.C. Andrews, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Foxfire, to name a few. Our narrator, Neva Craven, is 15 and pregnant, a fate worse than death in the American South circa 1970. She’s taken by force to Wellwood House in Florida, a secretive home for unwed mothers where she’s given the name Fern. She’ll have the baby secretly and give it up for adoption, whether she likes it or not. Under the thumb of the house’s cruel mistress, Miss Wellwood, and complicit Dr. Vincent, Neva forges cautious alliance with her fellow captives—a new friend, Zinnia; budding revolutionary Rose; and young Holly, raped and impregnated by the very family minister slated to adopt her child. All seems lost until the arrival of a mysterious bookmobile and its librarian, Miss Parcae, who gives the girls an actual book of spells titled How To Be a Groovy Witch. There’s glee in seeing the powerless granted some well-deserved payback, but Hendrix never forgets his sweet spot, lacing the story with body horror and unspeakable cruelties that threaten to overwhelm every little victory. In truth, it’s not the paranormal elements that make this blast from the past so terrifying—although one character evolves into a suitably scary antagonist near the end—but the unspeakable, everyday atrocities leveled at children like these. As the girls lose their babies one by one, they soon devote themselves to secreting away Holly and her child. They get some help late in the game but for the most part they’re on their own, trapped between forces of darkness and society’s merciless judgement.
A pulpy throwback that shines a light on abuses even magic can’t erase.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9780593548981
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Better set aside several uninterrupted hours for this toxic rocket. You’ll be glad you did.
A successful Vermont podcaster who’s elicited confessions from dozens of criminals finds herself on the other side of the table, in the hottest of hot seats, over her own troubled past.
Poe Webb was only 13 when she saw her mother, Margaret McMillian, get stabbed to death by the man she’d picked up for a quickie. Poe had vowed revenge, but how could a kid find and avenge herself on a stranger who’d vanished as quickly as he appeared? In the long years since then, Poe’s made a name for herself as a top true-crime podcaster who routinely invites her guests to tell her audience exactly what they did. Now, she’s being pressed, and pressed hard, by Ian Hindley, whose fake name echoes those of England’s Moors Murderers, to join him in a livestream her fans will find riveting because, as Hindley tells her, he’s actually Leopold Hutchins, the pickup who stabbed her mother 14 times when she failed to use her safe word. Skeptical? Hindley knows endless details about the killing that were never released by the police. If Poe won’t do the broadcast, Hindley threatens to harm everyone she loves: her father; her producer and lover, Kip Nguyen; and her black Lab, Bailey. And there’s one more complication that makes the pressure on Poe even more unbearable. Seven years ago, against all odds, she succeeded in tracking Leopold Hutchins from Burlington to New York and killing him herself. In fact, it’s that murder that Hindley most wants her to talk about. Which bully is more fearsome, the man who’s threatening her or the man she killed?
Better set aside several uninterrupted hours for this toxic rocket. You’ll be glad you did.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781464226229
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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