"All These Bodies" gave me the chills that I was looking for. Kendare Blake has done it again so don't miss out on this one!

This was such a ride! I could not put this book down because I had to know what happened. But do I still know what happened?!?! Blake is such a master storyteller.

WOW! This one is disturbing, but in really good ways.

The author does a great job of creating "place" in this novel. The reader really understands this quiet, insular town that suddenly finds itself in a multi-state spotlight when a local family is murdered.

Our POV is that of the local sheriff's son. I don't think calling these characters "Andy Griffith-like" is a stretch. This is a small town that previously had seen very little crime. The book is set in 1958 and someone has been going around small towns, committing murders, and leaving the bodies completely drained of blood with no fingerprints or evidence. Just when people began to stop carrying their guns, another murder is committed. Nearly an entire family in a nice quiet farmhouse just outside of town. When the police arrive there are three dead bodies, a crying baby, and teenage girl covered in blood. She agrees to confess but only to the sheriff's son. Opie is about to get woke.

It is easy to get caught up villainizing characters like the tough as nails, wildly inappropriate visiting from Nebraska DA. It is easy to forget that this little girl was the one found at the murder scene. She was present at the time of the murders. I want to say more about how the narration hints at the reader, because it is really jarring and keeps you on your toes. But I also want to be careful to not share too many spoilers. So, what I will say is that this Capote-esque novel is truly frightening and a book you will not be able to put down.

This is Catherine Hale's story... victim? Murderess? Liar? Delusional? Psychopath? The reader has choices to make on what to believe. Blake spins Catherine as a characte and her story in a way that will keep you between empathy, disgust, fear and always unease. And even when you think you've figured it all out? One last bomb explodes to blow your carefully pieced puzzle apart.


"Tell the truth and shame the devil. When I started that seemed like an easy thing... Find out what really happened, because the truth is the truth. Except it isn't, is it? Facts, maybe. But the truth is our own. It's tied up with belief. And belief is harder to hold down"

I dont know what possessed me to read a fiction account of a murder spree throughout the Midwest days before I'm driving from Colorado to St. Louis but I did, and I have to drive back to Colorado again too.

Kendare Blake just loves bloody murdering everything... queens... sprees... my love for 3DC now makes complete sense.
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This novel was very spooky and unsettling. The entire atmosphere and setting really set the tone for the story to unfold in the best way. What I loved best about this book was that you never really know what to believe. The story is told from the viewpoint of Michael, an aspiring journalist and son of the local sheriff, whose small town is rocked by the latest in a series of sensational murders that have rocked the nation in the late 1950s. Michael is pulled into the investigation when the only person at the crime scene, a young girl covered in the victim's blood, chooses to tell him her story and the story of all the murders, however unbelievable they may sound. I really enjoyed this book and the story was super thrilling, though I did feel like the timeline was a little dragged out, and I was still left curious at the end. All in all, the writing was good and the characters were well written and likeable(except for the ones who weren't supposed to be). I enjoyed this book and look forward to more from this author.

There is something wonderful about the way the time period in which the story takes place lends to its creepiness. That is, in the late '50s, there was so much trust and so little that was gruesome that anything remotely strange comes off as SINISTER - which is a great vibe that stays consistent through the whole book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My opinion was not affected by the free copy.

It's honestly difficult for me to pin down how I feel about this book. I almost stopped reading it very early on, but it grew on me over time and I ended up liking it by the end. But I mostly like it for the atmosphere and the unsettling vibe it was putting out the whole way through. There were some parts of it that made me very uncomfortable. I realize that was the intention, but it doesn't change how I felt. I also have a more nitpick negative thought about the book. I don't think it's fair to penalize it for that but again, it affected how I looked at the story.

This nitpick I'm talking about is the fact that the book set itself up as the principle narrator claiming he was going to tell Marie's story. The book doesn't even get around to him talking to Marie until maybe the 30% marker, and even then we only get small pieces of her story. And that's not even where it stops. Another character swoops in and starts telling parts of Marie's story, something that she is deeply upset and pissed about. So I personally did not like that the reader never actually got to have Marie's story told to us in her own words-- we got these two guys telling her story for her. Michael was a bit more faithful about it than the other guy, but still. I'm sure someone else can write a think piece on the meaning behind these guys telling her story instead of her getting to tell it herself but for me, I just see a huge missed opportunity. This could have been like Frankenstein or Interview With a Vampire where the main narrator is simply relaying a story that another character is telling them.

Now for the part that made me uncomfortable. I don't usually like spoiling books when I review them, but I believe it's important in this case because it's a pretty huge trigger warning. It is very heavily implied that Marie was sexually abused by her stepfather. If that isn't bad enough, she's painted as a seductress and a willing participant in the sexual acts, and she's constantly being branded as "that kind" of girl. While the town's reaction to her is completely believable and shows echoes of things from real life, it's still gross and unsettling. Granted, the reader never knows with complete certainty if Marie was sexually abused since she never says so herself, but as it's focused on quite a bit, it's still prominent enough that I need to mention it.

Uncertainty is one of the things that could go either way with readers: either they're going to like the ambiguity of the book, or they're going to dislike the fact that there are so few answers and so much is left open for readers to interpret. Like I said, Marie tells some bits of her story, but she's vague about a lot of it and she never talks about some parts. Marie's involvement and participation, either willingly or not, is left open to debate, as is the identity of the man she was with. There's also a lot of weird stuff that goes on in town that's never fully explained. So if you're the sort of reader who needs to have a definite "this is what happened", this is not the book for you. I personally liked the uncertainty, but that's me.

Like I said before, the best part of the book for me was the atmosphere. I already admitted I disengaged early on when I realized I wasn't going to have Marie's story told to me by Marie herself, but I found myself drawing back in with the small town vibe and the eerie, gothic feel. On the whole it has a timeless quality to it, and only on occasion does it make the reader aware of the time period. I also think it would make great book club discussion analyzing what a "monster" is in the context of the book and the mob mentality that comes out through the course of the story.

It's dark, it's unsettling, it has a nice old school horror vibe, and the ending leaves the reader with uncertainty. I would recommend it with the note to be aware of the trigger warning as well as there being no real happy ending. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's depressing, but I would say it's tragic.