THEY DID BAD THINGS :: Lauren A. Forry

Lauren A. Forry's They Did Bad Things is an Agatha Christie-esque mystery that is engaging but ultimately fell short of the mark. It begins with a diary found at the entrance to Wolfheather House on the Isle of Doon. Unfortunately, the diary has missing pages that have not been recovered. Pages of the diary are interspersed with the past and present of Hollis Drummond, Maeve Okafor, Eleanor Hunt, Oliver Holcombe, and Lorna Torrington. Missing from the present is Callum, who was murdered by one of the others in September 1994 while the six were living together in student housing at 215 Caldwell Street.

Each went their own way after Callum's death, putting the bad things they did behind them. Now they have each come to Wolfheather House under false pretenses, none knowing the others will be present. Who has summoned them there and why is spun out over the course of the novel as bodies begin to drop and already worn relationships fray further and old wounds and desires play out.

I love reading about shitty people. It's kind of my jam and I should probably get therapy about it. But these people weren't really interesting in their shittiness, which meant I was never invested in who did what and why. I wasn't rooting for or against anyone. The one character I thought was going to put a cool spin on things was killed early on.

There were some cool elements. I thought the concept was great and the ways the puppeteer worked them over with details from Caldwell Street was great. On the flip side, the identity of the string-puller was no great surprise, the murder of Callum was for very strange reasons and didn't have much oomph behind it, and I was not really bummed at any demise save the one. Yes, these people all did bad things, they just weren't very compellingly played out. Ultimately, I didn't care how the book ended. It does have a rockin' great cover.