It’s July 1995. April and Eddie Carter are newly-weds on their way to a stay at the Five Pines Resort, a cheap motel on the edge of Lake Michigan.
They’re on a long dark road, late at night, and they see a woman up ahead, clearly in trouble. They stop and pick her up. It’s only once she’s in the car that they see the blood. And then they see the headlights, and at last, the woman, whose name is Rhonda Jane, speaks, her voice faint. “I’m sorry, he’s coming.”
The hitchhiker’s injuries prove fatal, and the couple are trapped in the small town of Coldlake Falls, prime suspects in the eyes of local police. The detective interviewing them suspect April and Eddie of the murder and are told to not leave town.
Forced to stay in the small settlement whilst the crime is being investigated, Eddie and April find that Rhonda Jane is not the first victim to be found along Atticus Road. There are deaths and mysterious disappearances that go back to the Sixties, with the cases still unsolved.
The police seem particularly unhelpful. Whilst under suspicion themselves, they try to both find evidence that shows their innocence and uncover who the real murderer is. Being 1995, this means no mobile phones, or instant photographs or videos for evidence, of course. Further mysteries unravel – who is ‘The Lost Girl’? And why according to local legend does a sighting of her mean that you’re the next victim? As Eddie and April have seen her, does it mean that they could be next?
Although there are elements that give good solid X-Files type chills, this is really more of a murder mystery than an out and out horror story, but Simone does well to keep the lines blurred between the supernatural and the ‘real’, which keeps both the characters and the reader guessing along the way.
What complicates matters further is that the couple discover that they don’t know each other as well as perhaps they should – both of them have secrets from their past that may well have been left hidden.
All is resolved by the end. It’s a solid page-turner that drags you in and keeps you reading, with touches of Stephen King small town America, and some minor chills to keep your interest.
But by the end, what struck me most was what was perhaps the main moral of the story? Make sure you know your partner before you marry them….
MURDER ROAD by Simone St James
Published by Penguin Michael Joseph, March 2024
363 pages
ISBN: 978 024 167 8183
Review by Mark Yon
