BEE CONSPIRACY

Sager returns with his take on a gothic whodunit set on the coast of Maine.

The year is 1983. Kit McDeere is a disgraced home caregiver who has one chance to redeem herself: She’s assigned to look after the ailing, elderly Lenora Hope, a local Lizzie Borden figure. Back in 1929, Lenora allegedly murdered her parents and sister, and now, along with her remaining staff, she resides at Hope’s End, the Gothic mansion on Maine’s crumbling cliffs where the murders took place. Lenora can’t speak following a series of strokes, but with Kit’s help, she can type, and she wants to tell her story once and for all, confiding in Kit what happened on the night of the infamous murders. The novel moves between Kit’s narration in the present and Lenora’s typewritten account of her life leading up to the incident. Early on, the novel evokes such genre classics as “The Fall of the House of Usher” and Rebecca, establishing a moody atmosphere and intriguingly suspicious characters. However, this novel lacks the psychological realism of its influences. Sager doesn’t play with gothic tropes so much as he simply traffics in them. The first half of the book is tense and propulsive, but in later chapters the narrative takes so many outlandish turns so quickly that it borders on camp. Characters act in ways that are clichéd and implausible, and they are given cartoonish dialogue to match their behavior. Villains confess easily, in long speeches that strain credulity, and a subplot around paternity takes on the flavor of a telenovela. Multiple scenes involve characters emerging from doorways to reveal they were there all along. (Gasp!) That said, the novel reads quickly and provides a thrilling, if goofy, ride for those with a high tolerance for plot hijinks and a fondness for Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak.

An entertaining thriller if you can give yourself over to its sillier plot devices.