{"id":1622477,"date":"2022-08-26T07:48:23","date_gmt":"2022-08-26T11:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1622477"},"modified":"2022-08-26T07:48:40","modified_gmt":"2022-08-26T11:48:40","slug":"these-two-thriller-novels-breathe-new-life-into-an-old-plot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/these-two-thriller-novels-breathe-new-life-into-an-old-plot\/","title":{"rendered":"These Two Thriller Novels Breathe New Life Into An Old Plot"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthese-two-thriller-novels-breathe-new-life-into-an-old-plot%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1622477&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Since\u00a0\u201cGone Girl\u201d\u00a0opened the genre\u2019s floodgates wide a decade ago, thousands of \u201ctwisty\u201d domestic thrillers have risen and sunk in the public consciousness, sporting hyped-up blurbs promising a \u201cblindingly original\u201d plot with a \u201ckiller twist.\u201d Readers have braved a surfeit of unreliable narrators, hair-pin misdirections, and shock endings, some of which <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/10\/08\/mythology-and-murdered-maidens-cant-save-this-disappointing-thriller\/\">prove flat-out insane<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Two new psychological thrillers,\u00a0\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.barnesandnoble.com\/w\/the-long-weekend-gilly-macmillan\/1139752624?ean=9780063074323\">The Long Weekend<\/a>\u201d\u00a0by British author Gilly Macmillan and\u00a0\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.barnesandnoble.com\/w\/nine-lives-peter-swanson\/1139682007?ean=9780062980076\">Nine Lives<\/a>\u201d\u00a0by American writer Peter Swanson, may not impress themselves into the popular psyche like\u00a0\u201cGone Girl\u201d\u00a0did, though one is both entertaining and surprisingly thoughtful in its own fatalistic fashion, while the other lays on the frenetic emotionalism but fails to transcend the essential absurdity of the genre.<\/p>\n<p>Coincidentally, the action in each novel is launched by a disturbing letter, and the resulting mayhem is driven by the twisted logic of poisoned love. But beyond those superficial similarities, the two thrillers operate on very different levels.<\/p>\n<p>In\u00a0\u201cNine Lives,\u201d<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>nine strangers scattered across the U.S. receive the exact same disconcerting letter in the mail, a single sheet of paper containing a typed list of nine names, including their own. Some fret about the letter, some toss it and forget it. When one person on the list is murdered, it could be a coincidence. But when another is killed\u2026<\/p>\n<p>The action occurs in spots from Los Angeles to Maine and seems primed to unfold as a series of local police procedurals. The author evades that tangle by keeping the cops mostly sidelined, save for one Agatha Christie fan, a police detective working the sight of the first murder, a resort town in Maine. The focus stays on the domestic drama and the deaths, which are all the more frightening for being staged with, shall we say, unusual decorum.<\/p>\n<p>Among the potential victims is an FBI agent, a psychotic actor, a trophy girlfriend, an aspiring country songwriter, a repressed English professor, and a retired businessman-author. As the body count mounts, the remaining targets on the list are put on alert by\u00a0FBI agent Jessica Winslow, who is on the list herself. Were the names chosen at random, or is there something that links these nine people, which makes them each a target of the unknown killer?\u00a0If there is a link, can it be uncovered in time to catch the killer and save lives?<\/p>\n<p>This is Swanson\u2019s eighth novel, and he knows his way around the thriller genre. The writing is streamlined without being slick, and he even sneaks in some heart, giving his creations room to breathe (at least until they die in a macabre fashion). Even a hitman is humanized \u2014 one of several points where you may\u00a0<em>think<\/em>\u00a0you know where the story is headed.<\/p>\n<p>Swanson gleefully upends expectations of who is getting out of the story alive. He opens files on characters and closes them with merciless rapidity. The book has a series of kidney punches that keep one breathless when yet another relatable plucky character who surely has the spunk to make it to the end \u2014 doesn\u2019t.\u00a0\u201cNine Lives\u201d\u00a0has a wide streak of fatalism, with one character bluntly observing \u201cdeath is coming for us all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Swanson is a huge Christie fan, and the book includes many \u2014 perhaps too many \u2014 references to her masterpiece\u00a0\u201cAnd Then There Were None.\u201d In fact,\u00a0\u201cNine Lives\u201d\u00a0actually functions as a spoiler. So read Christie first, if you haven\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>Besides expertly handling multiple points of view, Swanson gets away with the contorted psychological motivations for the killings. The inevitable \u201cunreliable narrator\u201d effect is strained but doesn\u2019t\u00a0feel ludicrous. Only the final scene feels extraneous, blunting the brute force of what has preceded. Or is it also a Christie homage?<\/p>\n<p>Gilly Macmillan\u2019s\u00a0\u201cThe Long Weekend\u201d\u00a0has all the necessary attributes of a successful thriller: paranoia, secrets, a crew of neurotics, and an isolated, forbidding setting. That setting is the novel\u2019s greatest strength: Dark Fell Barn, the remote retreat in the North of England where the \u201clong weekend\u201d unfurls.<\/p>\n<p>But the married couples\u2019 weekend \u2014 with Mark and Jayne (former intelligence operatives), Paul and Emily (restaurateur, \u201ctrophy\u201d wife), and Toby and Ruth (college professor, doctor) \u2014 is off to a sour start, as none of the three husbands can make it to Dark Fell, and the women can\u2019t get updates because phone service is unreliable.<\/p>\n<p>But an even darker shadow hangs over the festivities, in the form of an absent fourth couple. Edie is the embittered widow of Rob, who died by drowning months before. Edie\u2019s feelings are clearly hurt by the others meeting up again so soon. But could Edie, a known prankster and grudge holder, actually be disturbed enough to have sent them the gift that awaits them upon arrival \u2014 the classy champagne with a note attached, signed \u201cE,\u201d that ends: \u201cBy the time you read this, I\u2019ll have killed one of your husbands\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>The husbands all knew each other from school, making the three wives interlopers, linked together by happenstance, not personal friendship, who have to make the best of it for at least one night on their own, not certain if their husbands are still alive.<\/p>\n<p>That dynamic heightens the tension, anxieties further goosed by a titanic storm that separates the protagonists at critical times. A dementia-suffering host who sees odd things, real or imagined, heightens the menace at Dark Fell Barn, which feels suitably dank and forbidding. Unfortunately, Macmillan sometimes gilds that particular lily with ham-handed descriptions: \u201cThere\u2019s something unyielding about it. Stubborn and cold. She shudders.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The wives have problems of their own. Ruth has taken to heavy drinking since having a baby, and husband Toby refuses to bond with the child. Jayne is bringing a gun and an unhealthy interest in the farm\u2019s Neolithic burial chambers. Insecure Emily is wandering about in the storm to no clear purpose. Character flaws emerge under the anxieties and pressures wrought by the threatening letter and the isolation. (And don\u2019t forget the gun.)<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, off-stage, a confident, unidentified antagonist has set in motion their own plans for the killer weekend, including a storage locker and a deep freezer. But who will end up doing what to whom?<\/p>\n<p>Macmillan writes in the honorable women-in-distress tradition of Ruth Ware and maintains a nervous tension throughout, enhanced by her use of the present tense. But the intensity can become wearying after a while. She is good at rendering fraught relationships. In fact, the tormented but loving marriage of the financially struggling barn owners ends up more compelling than the jittery interaction of the women guests.<\/p>\n<p>She writes closely observed details on how stressful situations would actually play out in the real world.\u00a0There\u2019s a nicely devastating irony at the end,\u00a0when news expected to bring relief instead leads to exposing a delusion.<\/p>\n<p>But although all the standard domestic thriller parts are here, somehow they don\u2019t cohere. It\u2019s a couple of shades too melodramatic. The characters are collections of woes and anxieties with not enough room to live. Ironically, it\u2019s\u00a0\u201cNine Lives,\u201d the novel with the crazier synopsis, that renders its character more believably.<\/p>\n<p>Swanson also uses his chapter headings in\u00a0\u201cNine Lives\u201d\u00a0to build up suspense, as the list of potential victims is narrowed. In contrast, Macmillan\u2019s\u00a0\u201cThe Long Weekend\u201d\u00a0has no chapters, and sometimes one has to figure out whose head we\u2019re in from paragraph to paragraph. Macmillan keeps things frenetic; Swanson\u2019s tale unfolds with a taut sense of fatalism.<\/p>\n<p>In sum:\u00a0\u201cNine Lives\u201d\u00a0is a surprisingly thoughtful killing spree, while\u00a0\u201cThe Lost Weekend\u201d\u00a0is a disappointment whose chaotic tone perversely makes it feel derivative.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-comments mt-30 mt-sm-60\">\n<div class=\"article-comments-container d-flex flex-column align-items-center py-30\">\n    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"110\" height=\"106\" src=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/fdrlst-mark.svg\" class=\"img-fluid mb-20\" alt=\"The Federalist logo eagle mark\" \/>    <\/p>\n<p>Unlock commenting by joining the Federalist Community.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/plans\/pricing\/\" class=\"btn btn-on-white\">Subscribe<\/a>  <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since\u00a0\u201cGone Girl\u201d\u00a0opened the genre\u2019s floodgates wide a decade ago, thousands of \u201ctwisty\u201d domestic thrillers have risen and sunk in the public consciousness, sporting hyped-up blurbs promising a \u201cblindingly original\u201d plot<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":778,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1622477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1622477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/778"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1622477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1622477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1622477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1622477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1622477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}