The Overnight Guest, a 2022 novel by Iowa author Heather
Gudenkauf, mines a genre that I personally am getting sick of. Sure, the
world has sadistic killers who specialize in binding and torturing women and
children, but far too many writers today seem to find this particular horror and
the detailed description of its painful and bloody results to be a mainstay.
When you combine this with another modern writing convention
of popping back and forth constantly between times and characters, you have a novel full of already overused conventions. The plot tells the story of a bloody family massacre that reverberates over many years. It depends on the improbable meeting of two of the victims
and continuous descriptions of fear, dread, and violence. Of course, it is “a dark and stormy night in a secluded farmhouse
and the power (wait for it) just has to go out etc. and etc. The imprisoned
must also pick this night after years of sick torture to try an escape. To be
sure there is the requisite final twist at the end, but I remain convinced that
you should pick this book up only if you have nothing better to do. I am going
back to Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes.
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