Saint X - Alexis Schaitkan

Drama/Thriller

Rating: 7/10

First thing you need to know about this book is that it is deeply unsettling. The main character is the sister of a dead girl who by chance gets into a cab driven by a man who was a suspect in her death. Obsessed with learning the truth, she begins to stalk him, neglecting every other aspect of her life. And as the story unspools, the two begin to interact in ways that feel too intimate to be comfortable given the context.

The author created a unique narrative style that in some ways resulted in the book reading like a true crime. You have all the required elements: a mysterious death, a seemingly perfect family and available suspects.  But what the structure allows within fiction is the reader to understand that the dead’s stories are lifted away from them in the retelling.  Not just the stories of their deaths, but those of their lives as well.

Thanks to Macmillan Publishers for the advance readers copy.

Footnote: This is a smart writer who subverts the trope of the usual “murder mystery” and delivers a book that is thought provoking in ways you likely won’t be expecting.