Scan barcode
A review by screamdogreads
One of the Good Guys by Araminta Hall
3.0
"I slipped down the side passage, past the dark, empty kitchen, where the light from the moon revealed the remnants of Leonora's supper, some bread and cheese. There's something intensely personal about seeing what a person puts into their body, almost more personal, I think, than seeing their naked form."
One of The Good Guys is a multi-layered kind of novel. On its surface, it's a thriller, but once you scratch beneath there's a complex and thought-provoking and powerful story laying in wait. It acts as almost a mixed media approach to a book, utilizing a lot of podcast excerpts and group chat messages to reveal its mystery. From the very first page there's this intense wrongness to it all, everything is just instantly, very off. As a thriller it never becomes overly complex, and never really drags in any particular section of the novel. Equal parts compelling social commentary and edge of your seat domestic thriller, One of the Good Guys is a visionary, entertaining thrill-ride.
From all sides, it's such a miserable thing. Everyone we're forced to share a perspective with is an entirely abhorrent and toxic person, which is, exactly the point and it's not to the detriment of the novel either. It's a tale full of unreliable narrators and manipulators. Everyone, and I mean, everyone in this novel, takes a fat dump on moral boundaries. Despite this being a thriller, there's almost no mystery here. In fact, the core narrative of the tale is the dialogue, the discussions it opens up, the mystery of the missing girls sits on the back burner, simmering away behind the scenes. Rather than a dramatic whodunit, One of the Good Guys provides an experience that will have you sitting back and questioning everything.
One of The Good Guys is a multi-layered kind of novel. On its surface, it's a thriller, but once you scratch beneath there's a complex and thought-provoking and powerful story laying in wait. It acts as almost a mixed media approach to a book, utilizing a lot of podcast excerpts and group chat messages to reveal its mystery. From the very first page there's this intense wrongness to it all, everything is just instantly, very off. As a thriller it never becomes overly complex, and never really drags in any particular section of the novel. Equal parts compelling social commentary and edge of your seat domestic thriller, One of the Good Guys is a visionary, entertaining thrill-ride.
From all sides, it's such a miserable thing. Everyone we're forced to share a perspective with is an entirely abhorrent and toxic person, which is, exactly the point and it's not to the detriment of the novel either. It's a tale full of unreliable narrators and manipulators. Everyone, and I mean, everyone in this novel, takes a fat dump on moral boundaries. Despite this being a thriller, there's almost no mystery here. In fact, the core narrative of the tale is the dialogue, the discussions it opens up, the mystery of the missing girls sits on the back burner, simmering away behind the scenes. Rather than a dramatic whodunit, One of the Good Guys provides an experience that will have you sitting back and questioning everything.
"I shiver because my memories of the night are way too sharp, like a knife against my skin. It feels horribly lonely to think that we could have experienced such different versions of the same moment. An image flashes into my mind of Cole waking next to my bloodied corpse."
One of the Good Guys is entirely about the journey. It almost requires that readers flick back through and piece together all the clues they've missed. It almost feels like the plot of a soap opera, not entirely realistic and kind of ridiculous but still wildly entertaining. It's a difficult book to review, as a mystery thriller it's pretty bog-standard and the writing isn't particularly groundbreaking either, but in its exploration of sensitive issues, it's bold and fearless, standing out amongst the crowd in how vividly it dares discuss such things. You may not find pages of poetic ramblings here, but what you will find is a fresh, daring take on a tale that's known all too well.
"I'm worried about what might happen if we start another round too soon, not just to my body, but also to my mind. I've started getting these weird compulsions to dig into my skin and see what lies beneath."