Roach, a true crime addict, would rather be listening to the latest episode of her favorite true crime podcast than assisting the boring and predictable customers at her local branch of the bookstore Spines, where she’s worked her entire adult life. But when Laura, a pretty and charismatic children’s bookseller, arrives to help rejuvenate the struggling bookstore branch, Roach recognizes in her an unexpected kindred. But Laura deters every advance Roach tries on bringing them closer together. When Roach realizes that she may have come across her very own true crime story, interest swiftly blooms into a dangerous obsession.

This book was a hit and miss for me. It oozes like a slug across concrete: slow, deliberate, leaving behind a trail of grit and something sticky you can’t quite name. Its pacing might be glacial, but the reward is in the detail. The story plunges us into the claustrophobic world of a grimy chain bookshop. Slater’s knack for immersive atmosphere is both impressive and unsettling. Where the story really gains points is in its characters. What begins with seemingly clear distinctions — light (Laura) and dark, moral and macabre (Roach) — soon decays into a far more satisfying mess of human chaos. People change, double back, unravel. There’s a haunting sense that every character is one obsession away from doing something unthinkable. In tone and intensity, it evokes the Series *You* — but instead of luxury apartments and artisanal bookstores, it’s sticky floors, chain-smoking, and emotional rot. It’s not a thriller in the high-octane sense, but rather a psychological autopsy of obsession, loneliness, and the parasitic nature of some relationships — particularly those formed over shared interests… and perhaps too many true crime podcasts. A word of caution to fellow readers: tread carefully. Trigger warnings include stalking, alcohol abuse, smoking (as habitual as breathing), and a persistent sense of grime that makes you want to scrub your hands after each chapter. But for those with a stomach for the grotesque and the beautifully bleak, this book is a treasure buried in dirt.