Mysteries Ahoy!

Originally published in 2024

The night after her father’s funeral, Claire meets Lucas in a bar. Lucas doesn’t know it, but it’s not a chance meeting. One thoughtless mistyped email has put him in the crosshairs of an extremely put-out serial killer. But before they make eye contact, before Claire lets him buy her a drink—even before she takes him home and carves him up into little pieces—something about that night is very wrong. Because someone is watching Claire. Someone who is about to discover her murderous little hobby.

The thing is, it’s not sensible to tangle with a part-time serial killer, even one who is distracted by attending a weekly bereavement support group and trying to get her art career off the ground. Will Claire finish off her blackmailer before her pursuer reveals all? Let the games begin . . .

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Have you ever picked up a book that ought to be entirely your sort of thing but which just didn’t work for you? Recently I had just that sort of an experience with Joanna Wallace’s You’d Look Better as a Ghost which was one of the monthly selections for April in Barnes and Noble.

The novel is narrated by Claire, an artist whose father has just died after a lengthy illness. An introvert, Claire is struggling to navigate the social requirements of the funeral when she receives an email that tells her that her artwork has been selected for an exhibition. She is congratulated by everyone and with their encouragement, decides to think of this as a silver lining. Unfortunately the next day she receives another email from the same writer, informing Claire that she was contacted by mistake. Her work was not select after all.

Unfortunately for Lucas, the author of that email, Claire happens to be a very dangerous woman when scorned. Already a killer many times over, Claire decides to seek him out and take her revenge. Things seem to go to plan but then later, after attending a bereavement support group, she realizes that there may have been a witness to her crime, putting her in danger…

Claire is a rather caustic character, quick to offer withering judgment on those she encounters and has to talk to, and much of the book’s comedic content comes from her social discomfort and thoughts about the others attending that support group. That group is stuffed with eccentrics and recognizable types, all designed to try Claire’s patience, and so we hear plenty of her stream of consciousness as she puts up with their antics and squabbles. Some will find her acidic thoughts amusing and some did hit the mark for me, but given the emotional problems of most of the characters, this often struck me as punching down, making those comments feel too uncomfortable to be truly funny.

As a serial killer it seems that Claire is intended to be an antihero but Wallace doesn’t really try to find the good in her to get us to sympathize with her, focusing instead on the unpleasant natures of her victims. Unlike Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter however, Claire is not operating with a system of rules or deliberately setting out to kill monsters. It’s more that sometimes she happens to snag a monster in her net because they’ve crossed her in some way and she wants to punish them.

Wallace does however opt to give Claire a backstory, delivered in flashbacks throughout the novel. These chapters throw light on some of the formative events in her life and several of these are effectively written, but the stories are not in themselves terribly surprising once the reader has been introduced to all the characters. Nor do I think that those sections entirely answer the questions readers may have about what drives Claire to keep killing in the way she does.

The most interesting aspect of the story for me was not the killings or even Claire’s emotional responses to doing them, but how she responds when placed under the pressure of suspicion. In these scenes we not only see her quick-thinking and analytical skills, we see her thrown off her game a little and realizing that she does not have total control over her environment and the thoughts of those around her. These are some of the most exciting and creative passages in the book and the author does a fine job of making the reader wonder just what Claire has in mind and how her actions will be perceived and interpreted by those around her.

If there is an issue with this midsection of the novel, it is that I think it never feels like Claire is in imminent danger. Yes, she is under scrutiny and could easily incriminate herself, but she is so calm and unflappable that the danger is actually downplayed. This is a little unfortunate because I think Wallace does come up with some very difficult situations for the character to navigate, but even the most catastrophic of developments (and there are a couple of these) never really seem to knock her off her stride. I do not entirely begrudge that decision as Wallace does other interesting and unexpected things, but I do have to point out that several opportunities to rachet up the tension are left on the table.

Those interesting and unexpected things are largely character-related moments. While I think we never entirely get to grips with why Claire has developed in the way she did, the book does explore the question of what her future without her father will look like. I really appreciate the way the author has Claire change throughout the book as a result both of her experiences and a few of the people she meets during the story. I think the book does a good job of showing some ways she has changed, as well as areas in which she remains pretty much the same.

The other aspect of this book that I responded positively to was the incorporation of some more traditional mystery elements, even if they are not a point of focus in the first half of the novel. Claire is not a detective, but we soon learn that she is not the only person who has been blackmailed. Wallace is subtle in her exploration of what precisely was happening, providing hints to the reader but not highlighting those questions until we reach the book’s climax. The moment in which those questions are posed and explored is very good, and I appreciate that hints to some developments are laid within the text for readers to absorb and interpret. That the case has a very solid and neatly clued solution makes it all the more enjoyable, even if there is at least one rather fantastical plot element for readers to accept.

This brings me to the book’s conclusion. I really appreciated how neatly Wallace ties up the various story threads, exploring not only what happens immediately but fallout further down the line. In particular, I liked how the ending fits what we know of the character of Claire and how she thinks.

While there were some storytelling choices that really worked for me with this story, I struggled to appreciate its dark sense of humor. I was surprised how little I laughed throughout the book, perhaps not helped by some uncomfortable subject matter, and I struggled to find anyone I would want to have a modicum of a happiness at the end. Still, Wallace’s attention to story construction is admirable and I do think that the ending really delivers what I wanted. Unfortunately the path to that point is rather long and winding…

The Verdict: High expectations were let down. The premise is neat but the characters are hard to care about, and the subject matter is a little heavier and darker than you might expect. Not for me, but I would be willing to try another Wallace in the future though as there were interesting ideas here.