Book Review: "The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre," by Philip Fracassi

 

    Another month, another delightful bit of genre fiction from Philip Fracassi. This is the second 2025 novel of Fracassi's that I've reviewed, and I enjoyed this one just as much as the last. This time, instead of The Third Rule of Time Travel's inventive sci-fi, we have a delightfully violent entry in the "old folks solving mysteries" genre that has become so prevalent as of late. 

    I'm not one for cozy mysteries, so I've mostly avoided the huge influx of retirement home or similar set novels about elder citizens with a love of true crime getting to tackle a case of their own. I had a feeling that Philip would have something interesting to mix into the formula, though, and that was certainly true. The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre is a full-on slasher. It's got a massive body count, inventive kills, a deranged killer... what else could you want? When you tell me that an old woman who just wants to spend time with her daughter and grandson is instead going to be hunted by a masked psycho, you have gained my attention. 

    This book focuses on Rose DuBois, a woman with a difficult past who is just trying to enjoy her later years in peace with her friends at Autumn Springs. The old folks who make up the central cast are a hoot. Fracassi has created a variety of unique, easy-to-root-for senior citizens each with their own challenges, fears, and theories. The vast majority of the story is from Rose's point of view, as we are introduced to the retirement community, its denizens, caretakers, administrators, and even a detective who is starting to think all of these violent deaths at Autumn Springs are maybe a little fishy.  

    My only real complaints with book are that it teases going supernatural a few times and doesn't quite satisfactorily handle that -- it needed to go all-in or leave it alone -- and there are a few chapters from the killer's perspective that are never interesting enough to feel worthy of inclusion. There's no motive or insight that would make it a more interesting reveal... like many good slasher villains, this one just is what they are and that's good enough. When you're stabbing, poisoning, burning, and tossing old folks from great heights, the point of view worth following is that of the elderly victim. 

    Ultimately, it's a quick, fun read that injects some over-the-top carnage into the senior citizen mystery world. Fracassi doesn't reinvent the wheel, here, but he gives it a hell of a shove down a steep, bloody hill. 

 

4.5/5 

Book Review: "Fiend," by Alma Katsu

 

    Alma Katsu's new novel Fiend is, to me, a delightful mix of HBO's Succession and Radio Silence's Ready or Not. It's the story of the Berisha family, a massively wealthy and powerful Albanian business empire run by brutal patriarch Zef and two of his children. The presumed successor to Zef, Dardan, might not have what it takes to take his father's place. The middle child, Maris, clearly does, but her father doesn't want a female in his seat. The youngest daughter, Nora, isn't reliable enough to even have working for the company, at least in the eyes of her parents.

    There are rumors of a protector for Zef, maybe more of an enforcer, with whispers of supernatural power. Maris doesn't believe in such a thing, Dardan won't talk about it, and Nora might know more than her family gives her credit for. Katsu's book follows Maris and her desire to take the top spot in the company and family. It's a typical fight against misogynistic corporate structures in some ways, but you'll quickly find that Maris has just as much of a killer instinct as her father. The way she describes her mother, Olga, as a coward, for example, let's you know that Maris has more backbone than Dardan, who is increasingly struggling with his father's legacy and his future with a company that seems to have no qualms about crushing its competitors and adversaries in more physical ways than you might imagine. 

    It's a thrillingly fast-paced book from Katsu, who in the past has generally stuck to what you'd probably describe as historical horror. This book is very of-the-moment, and while I felt like I got a few steps of ahead of some of its eventual reveals, I never had anything other than a great time discovering the truth about the Berishas and the mysterious "protector" at the center of some of the chaos that unfolds. I'm sure anyone familiar with Succession can see where the comparisons to that show come in, but if you were left scratching your head at my Ready or Not mention, that's where the book will hook you the hardest if your brain works like mine does. It's not overtly similar, but anyone who found that movie's reveals concerning its own wealthy, powerful business family's dark secret enjoyable, I think you'll like Katsu's story of the Berisha family and their protector just as much. 

    As with all of Katsu's novels, Fiend is effortlessly digestible and efficiently tells its tale. I'd have been happy to spend another hundred pages with the siblings bickering about the company's treatment of workers in third-world countries or their very concerning handling of whistleblowers, but I can't argue with the lean and mean nature of the novel too much. It's a quick, fun read that's likely only slightly more bloodthirsty than your average corporation in the real world.

 

4/5