by Lisa Lutz
First published 2012
Paul and Lacey Hansen grow marijuana on their modest property in rural Northern California. When the twentysomething siblings discover a headless corpse on their land, calling the police seems like a bad idea. They move the body somewhere else and hope another person will find it. The corpse shows up on their property again. Someone wants to send them a message, and that message grows more putrid each day. The body count climbs as Paul and Lacey try to figure out who keeps leaving corpses on their doorstep. Meanwhile, the story itself becomes a battlefield. Authors Lisa Lutz and David Hayward write alternating chapters of this murder mystery. The former partners disagree about every plot point and character decision. Their creative disputes spill into the text as they argue about how their fictional world should develop. The Hansen siblings face escalating danger while their creators wage a literary war.
Genres: fiction, mystery, crime, contemporary, thriller
Vibes: dark, fast-paced, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: California, Northern California, Rural Northern California
303 pages · Paperback · Berkley
Content warnings: drug-use, murder, violence