Synopsis
A young couple find themselves haunted by a string of gruesome murders committed along an old deserted road in this terrifying new novel.
July 1995. April and Eddie have taken a wrong turn. They’re looking for the small resort town where they plan to spend their honeymoon. When they spot what appears to be a lone hitchhiker along the deserted road, they stop to help. But not long after the hitchhiker gets into their car, they see the blood seeping from her jacket and a truck barreling down Atticus Line after them.
When the hitchhiker dies at the local hospital, April and Eddie find themselves in the crosshairs of the Coldlake Falls police. Unexplained murders have been happening along Atticus Line for years and the cops finally have two witnesses who easily become their only suspects. As April and Eddie start to dig into the history of the town and that horrible stretch of road to clear their names, they soon learn that there is something supernatural at work, something that could not only tear the town and its dark secrets apart, but take April and Eddie down with it all.
Review
A big thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC!
Classified as a personal “auto-buy” author for years, Simone St. James’ latest novel, Murder Road, delivers a haunting mystery filled with the same sense of delightfully frightening suspense I have come to know and love. Set in the ’90s, April and Eddie set out on a road trip towards their honeymoon destination. However, one set of missed directions and a wrong turn later lands them on a lonely stretch of road with one other occupant: a hitchhiker. In a moment of good faith, the couple stops to give them a ride; unbeknownst to them, these would be the hitchhiker’s final moments. The mystery that erupts from this simple decision to help a stranger spans decades and planes of existence, resulting in supernatural consequences for April and Eddie.
One of the best aspects of St. James’ writing is her ability to seamlessly weave a compelling thriller with instances of the paranormal/supernatural, elevating her plots to horror status. However, this horror is never presented in the way that you may conventionally think. Many of her books operate in a format similar to that of the police procedural while still feeling incredibly attached and grounded in mystery, the stakes raised through terror. These things are also true of Murder Road, a novel told exclusively from April’s perspective. While it’s very easy to classify April as a strong female main character, there’s another important fact about April: she is clearly in love and undoubtedly loyal to her husband Eddie.
Thrillers and horror stories tend to thrive on feelings of mistrust and unease, but St. James does the exact opposite here by giving us a main character with a unique, loving relationship with her husband. Murder Road felt inherently different from St. James’ other works for this reason, one I easily overlooked until it was discussed on social media (shoutout to Agatha Andrews from She Wore Black Podcast for pointing this out.) Despite their marriage existing in its infancy, the dynamic and love between Eddie and April is clear to see as they confront the ghost-shaped, wrongly-accused-by-law-enforcement problem before them.
Atticus Line feels like a character of its own within this story, given just how eerie and haunting this stretch of road proves to be. Sure, haunted highways are not a new concept in horror, but there’s something uniquely disturbing about Atticus Line and the ghosts it appears to harbor. What’s almost equally as horrifying is the methods by which local law enforcement handle their investigation of the hitchhiker’s death. The circumstances for Eddie and April felt notably bleak as they became the focus of this investigation, a choice made by the police that defies all logic and reason. Unfortunately, stories of those wrongly accused have become all too common in this day and age, making this threat very real and very dangerous.
Thriving on threats of this world and those of another, Murder Road is a suspenseful, gripping mystery that flourishes through its chilling setting and unique characterization. What seems like a simple police procedural is elevated to a personal horror story for newlyweds April and Eddie as they take matters into their own hands in order to clear their names. Simone St. James appeals to lovers of both horror and thrillers alike in her latest novel, one that leaves me anxiously awaiting her next release.
Murder Road by Simone St. James releases on March 5, 2024 from Berkley.
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