Final Girls by Riley Sager

 

This novel reminds me of The Serialist by David Gordon: It's a knowing take on serial killer fiction--especially slasher movies--that tangles and twists and loops. The difference, of course, is that Gordon was setting out on some level to take the piss out of all the tropes, and clearly didn't take any of it all that seriously (while still taking the novel seriously) and wrote with deftness and skill; Sager seems to take all the tropes seriously as hell, writes like a bison that's just run off a cliff, and has written a novel it's impossible to take seriously. The fact I at least flashed on who the killer was about halfway through might be evidence of that authorial clumsiness, evidence of authorial fair play, or evidence that I've read too much crime fiction and horror (of which this novel is closer to the former than the latter).