There's something especially insidious and unnerving about rules-based horror, where everything will turn out fine if you do exactly what you're supposed to do. Right? Right? Like many people, I was captivated by We Used to Live Here and obsessed over the clues and mysteries in r/oldhousearchive, and I'd been eagerly awaiting this follow-up in the same extended universe.

Macy Mullins can't hold down a job. Down on her luck, unemployed, about to be evicted, with a sister she's responsible for – until she's hired to be the new caretaker for the Carnswel estate. David Carnswel performed the Rites meticulously when he was alive, and now, Macy must take up his mantle and keep the darkness at bay.

This engaging, fast-paced read captured my attention right from the start, with the late Mr. Carnswel's futile attempts to keep the latest — and most distressing — Visitor at bay. Unfortunately, it starts out with a bang and quickly fizzles out. Marcus Kliewer's protagonists are deeply flawed, troubled, and traumatized, and it makes them act in utterly infuriating ways.

If Macy had been able to complete even one goddamn Rite to lure the reader into a false sense of security, the off-chance that things might turn out okay after all, the ending would have been so much more impactful. Instead, her incompetence right from the start blunted any emotional impact for me. The apocalypse is nigh because this idiot couldn't even turn off the lights. Oh well.

"Chilling and perceptive." "Spiral out of control." Based on the synopsis, I went into this novel expecting a tense, explosive thriller, but instead found a meandering character study of two women, who – despite vastly different circumstances – are trying to navigate profound loneliness, complex family dynamics, and societal norms and expectations around female friendship.

On the surface, Eriko lives an enviable life: well-educated, with a prestigious job, the "princess" of her family. However, under this façade lies a woman who's never had a real friend, whose perfectionism and obsessive nature is viscerally repulsive to those she tries to befriend. After becoming fixated with lifestyle blogger Shoko, she orchestrates a chance meeting, beginning a delicate dance of lovebombing, gaslighting, manipulation, and coercion.

I was captivated by Asako Yuzuki's Butter, with its burgeoning body horror, incisive look at beauty standards and normative bodies, and compelling plot. Unfortunately, with Hooked, I was anything but. I kept waiting for something more to happen, thinking that Eriko's stalking and obsession would ultimately escalate to a truly horrifying climax, but the ending was merely bleak – just another lonely, middle-aged woman resigning herself to her fate.

It's a testament to how much I enjoy the Veronica Stillwell series that I'll excuse the anachronism, as anyone into the occult and supernatural knows well that the real-life Highgate Vampire and associated incidents happened in the 1970s, a full century after Veronica and Stoker's adventures, but I digress. It's good to be reunited with characters we know and love, with plenty of sass.

When two young men are found dead, their circumstances couldn't be more dissimilar. One fell off his balcony in an apparent accident, while the other was found drained of blood in Highgate Cemetery. Yet, the two were friends and took care to keep their interest in occult matters secret. The usually no-nosense Veronica launches her own research into vampire folklore, sending the pair down a rabbit hole of London's elite, eccentric set, including a self-styled Lord and vampire. Hijinks ensue, and our duo saves the day – you know the drill. 

I was less impressed with the rather heavy-handed use of the Roma characters simply as window-dressing for the vampire trope, with the young scamp and the fortune teller. Not a big fan of the "bury your gays" situation that we've got going on here either.

Overall, I found this to be one of the weaker novels in the series, with both the aforementioned issues and a slower, less gripping plot. That being said, longtime fans of the series will probably still enjoy the banter and spending time with these beloved characters – I certainly did.

Robert Jackson Bennett is one of my favourite mystery authors – and that's saying something as his work is typically filed under fantasy or science fiction. His ability to weave a compelling mystery into fiction that challenges and elevates the genre is unparalleled, and American Elsewhere is no different. I came to this novel after devouring his Shadow of the Leviathan and Divine Cities series, and it didn't disappoint. 

It starts out like many novels of its ilk: ex-cop Mona Bright has inherited a house in an isolated, insular small community, one where things are not as they seem. The residents of Wink are strange and guard their secrets tightly, and Mona's questions about her mother's life and work at the enigmatic Coburn laboratory are swiftly rebuffed.

However, that's as far as the tropes go. The mystery blossoms into one of cosmic proportions, one that transcends space-time, with eldritch beings pulling the strings. A portrait of all-American domestic bliss belies an undercurrent of terror that keeps the residents, both human and utterly inhuman, obedient and pliable. 

What starts out as a subtle, slow-burn mystery escalates into full-blown horror. The grief and sorrow of multigenerational mother-daughter relationships and complicated sibling ties give way to fury and destruction, ultimately leaving a community completely ravaged and destroyed. Eldritch gods, monsters – they're just like us! The ending is bittersweet (oh, Gracie!) and likely to linger in my mind for a long time.

I've got mixed feelings about this one. It starts off with a bang, with a serial killer's manifesto outlining precisely what he's going to do: he's going to murder seven women and dismember their bodies, assembling the parts to bring about the perfect woman, Azoth. However, there's a catch: before he's able to put his nefarious plan into action, he is found dead. Yet, his planned crimes still go ahead – so who did it?

With a mind-boggling series of clues combining alchemy, astrology, energy lines, and other esoterica, our narrator – the Watson to his curious, eccentric friend's Sherlock – must work backwards to figure out who pulled off the crime that's baffled Japan for decades, and how. In classic Japanese honkaku style, all the clues are there for you to solve the mystery – but I'll admit there was no way I was going to puzzle this one out.

Ultimately, I found the big revelation somewhat disappointing – I didn't dislike the ending, but I definitely felt a bit let down. Though in many ways, that anticlimactic feeling fits perfectly with the themes of the novel. The reader, like the many characters who tried to solve the crime, gets so caught up in the mysticism, the occult, the grandiose, when in reality, the truth is far more mundane and bleak.

That being said, I'm glad to have found another vintage Japanese mystery novelist to explore – I find these so utterly addictive and knowing that there are no absurd twists, only the limits of my own logical thinking, is extremely satisfying. Looking forward to exploring more of his works in translation.