Amy K. Green (The Prized Girl) presents a twisting puzzle of a thriller with Haven't Killed in Years, starring a young woman whose hidden past resurfaces in bizarre, gruesome, and often funny ways.
"On the day my mother was released from prison I stubbed my toe four times.... It was a statistical anomaly and, in hindsight, a warning that bad things were coming my way." In this way, readers meet Gwen Tanner, who has a boring office job, an unremarkable one-bedroom apartment, and no serious relationships. From the outside she appears to be "your standard almost-too-basic law-abiding woman approaching thirty. On the inside? Eh, not so much." Gwen was born Marin Haggerty. When she was nine, her father was convicted on eight counts of first-degree murder (eight being just the ones they could pin on him) and both parents went to prison (her mother for aiding and abetting). Marin became Gwen and disappeared from the public eye. She has spent the past two decades building a resolutely ordinary life, hoping to avoid the fate her father intended for her: to be just like him. Her father had "also had a good job and worn nice clothes; it was the easiest way to hide in plain sight."
But now a severed arm turns up on her doorstep, with a note: "Hi, Marin." Someone knows Gwen's real story. Her safe, staid lifestyle is disrupted; and more than that, Gwen is offended that someone thinks they can get the better of her. She sets out to investigate, but the clues and the characters just tangle her up further. She meets a tour guide who specializes in her father's crimes, a group of murder-obsessed young men, and a woman from her own childhood who does not recognize her. These relationships complicate her sterile existence; she mostly accidentally finds herself making friends--who are also suspects. "When you let people into your life, there are so many details. I knew that and I had ignored my own rules anyway." Is it time for Gwen--Marin--to come into her own as her father's protégé? Or is she going to surprise herself and set out on her own path?
Just when this unforgettable protagonist thinks she knows who is behind which crimes, new information throws her (and readers) off track. Many scenes spin into comedies of errors, playing on constant subversions of expectations. In Gwen/Marin's dryly cynical voice, these madcap events hit both tender and comic notes. Despite instances of poignant suffering and a noteworthy serial killer, Haven't Killed in Years is weirdly, deeply fun. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia
Shelf Talker: The long-hidden daughter of a serial killer is caught up in a new wave of crimes in this clever, absorbing, constantly surprising novel about finding one's own way.