Amy Among the Serial Killers
A Novel
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Jincy Willett's beloved characters return in Amy Among the Serial Killers, a wickedly smart and funny take on the thriller genre by one of our most acclaimed literary humorists.
Carla Karolak is doing just fine. Having escaped the clutches of her controlling mother and founded a successful writing retreat in which participants are confined to windowless cells until they hit their daily word count, she lives a comfortable, if solitary, existence. If only her therapist, Toonie, would stop going on about Carla's nonexistent love life and start addressing her writer’s block, she might be able to make some progress. But then Carla finds Toonie murdered, and suddenly her unfinished memoir is the least of her concerns. Without quite knowing why, she dials an old phone number.
Amy Gallup, retired after decades as a writing instructor, is surprised to hear from her former student Carla out of the blue, three years since they last spoke. She’s even more shocked when she finds out the reason for Carla's call. Suddenly, she finds herself swept up in a murder investigation that soon brings her old writing group back together. But they’ll need all the help they can get, as one murder leads to another, and suspicions of a serial killer mount across San Diego.
Full of Jincy Willett’s trademark dark humor, an unforgettable cast of characters, and two of the most endearingly imperfect protagonists who have ever attempted to solve a murder, Amy Among the Serial Killers shows us what can be gained when we begin to break down our own walls and let others inside…as long as they aren’t murderers.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Willett's clever latest (after Amy Falls Down) follows a retired writing workshop teacher and her protegee as they become entangled with a series of murders in San Diego. After 35-year-old Carla Karolac's unloving mother dies, Carla turns the house they shared into a successful writing retreat. It's been three years since her mom's death, and though she's imagined asking former mentor Amy Gallup to help her scatter the ashes, she can't bring herself to do it. Carla adores Amy and once saved her life from a killer in Amy's workshop. Now, after a writer is found dead at Carla's house, Amy's old workshop gang gathers around Carla, as does the obnoxious self-proclaimed "Writing Guru" John X. Cousins. Amy notes that everyone's writing about serial killers because the stories sell, but after more real bodies appear, Cousins grows bolder about using people to construct a serial murderer narrative that he can exploit. Willett successfully turns the true crime motif into something more than a gimmick by fleshing out Carla's melancholy past as a child actor and leaning heavily on the bond between Carla and Amy. A few zany side plots feel a bit tangential, but it all pays off in the end. This is a treat.
