Emily is a struggling screenwriter who is stuck in her day job. She needs to make a change, and soon. When she gets together with long-lost friends to remember that fateful spring break when one of the 5 went missing and presumed dead, what better setting to hash out her new screenplay? Twists and turns leave the girls at each other, trying to find out what happened on that fateful night. This book had the storyline to be good, but it just fell flat for me with the structure. With the flashes of the screenplay interspersed with the story, it became a bit confusing, and I found myself a bit frustrated instead of just enjoying the story. I did finish, and for that, it gets 3 stars. It's not one of my favorites, and just okay. Thank you, NetGalley, for the eARC.

In SCENES OF THE CRIME, a screenwriter uses the story of a girls trip gone wrong as inspiration for a new script.

It’s hard for a locked room mystery to stand out when there are so many out there. The narrative style of this book focusing on a screenwriter takes it from the average girls’ weekend gone awry to something unique.

Emily was one of a group of five friends who went to a winery in Oregon during college to relax after exams. But when queen bee Vanessa goes missing without a trace on the getaway, the friends’ lives are changed forever.

15 years later Emily has gone on to become a screenwriter on a sitcom, which she finds dull and formulaic. She dreams of writing her own script someday. While at a café, she sees someone who looks exactly like Vanessa. Emily was the last one to see Vanessa alive—a secret she has kept since. Now, she may have inspiration to write a screenplay based on Vanessa, if only she can find out what really happened to her?

Emily convinces the group to get back together one more time at the very same winery where Vanessa disappeared. When the four reconvene, it soon becomes clear that one of them knows more than they’ve said. Strange events begin to occur, and clues to long-buried secrets appear in their rooms. Everyone has their own story of the night Vanessa disappeared, and none of them are keen to share it. Tension builds until the truth is finally revealed, and it’s clear none of them are going to be the same again.

I liked that Emily was using the story as inspiration to write a screenplay. The scenes from the present and past are interspersed with script pages, and it was hard to tell when Emily was taking artistic liberty with the portrayal of events. I loved the structure to the book!

At times certain parts dragged on, but the last 25% moved fast. These women all held secrets from one another, and there were a lot to reveal. Vanessa is an absent figure looming over the story. All four women were obsessed with her friendship and none have moved on 15 years later.

A unique take on a locked room mystery and a fun ending, this is a book that is an easy binge read for the psychological thriller lover.

tl;dr
High drama, bad blood, and toxic relationships are the building blocks of this twisty mystery. Takes a few chapters to pick up momentum.

Thoughts
There are no heroes in this story. It's not a book where you find someone to cheer for. Rather, it's the kind of book you read when you want to see how much trouble terrible people can get themselves into when they're stuck with each other, and it nails down that mood perfectly. Messy women, toxic friendships, and high drama rule the day, as our less-than-noble MC brings all her friends(?) together ostensibly to bring closure to trauma, but secretly to mine them for plot points on a script she's stalled out on. Everyone has secrets. Everyone's lying, most of all our POV narrator who - like all good writers - knows to never let the truth get in the way of a good story. What does get in the way, unfortunately, is the pacing. The setup takes time, and there were several moments where the plot felt like it meandered in the beginning. The second half of the book moves decidedly faster, bolstered by some clever writing and lots of cut-ins to the MC's "WIP script," of the events she's currently experiencing. It's a neat way to move things forward, as well as keep the reader guessing, and I liked all the reveals they included (or didn't!). Read it for the drama and allll the wine.

I was very excited to read this book, due to the blurb, and all the other promotions going on with it. After I started reading it, I realized that the story went in lots of different places, but didn’t really connect well. It seemed very disorganized, and there were parts of the story that just didn’t connect well to the main plot. I had a hard time concentrating on the main story because all the side characters made it near impossible to focus on the plot, which seem to go in many different directions, but didn’t really connect well at the end. This premise was really thought out but the final product didn’t connect in the story didn’t make a lot of sense.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this novel. Unfortunately, I was not able to finish the novel so I won't be leaving a full review.

This one has such a clever premise: a crime and a screen writer writing her script based upon the crime as it unfolds for the reader. the premise is fresh, but sadly this one felt like it had potential to be great but was just OK. A twisty read.

This one is for you if you like slow burn, friends with issues and a unique premise.

Thanks to Random House Ballentine and Netgalley for this advanced copy!

I love a good locked room mystery and this one was a fun read. We find Emily Fischer in a coffee shop in Los Angeles when she spots Vanessa or is it her doppelgänger who vanished without a trace twenty years ago, and she may just be the last person to see her alive. She invites the same group of friends to a similar get together on a remote winery on the Oregon coast.

I enjoyed the premise of the story, and I really enjoy locked room mysteries, where I tried to guess who the murderer is. I enjoyed the Hollywood style storytelling and screen writing of the story. Enjoyable and a great weekend read for thriller fans.

Thanks to Random House Ballentine and Netgalley for this advanced copy!

This was an interesting and fun mystery, perfect for a winter weekend snuggled under the blanket. A group of friends reconvene at a vineyard 20 years after a similar get-together where someone goes missing? Dies? No one is really sure. As the story unfolds, we get snippets of the screenplay one of the characters is writing based on the experience. What happened to Vanessa? Is she still alive? Who is "haunting" them?

I wish the author had done more to distinguish the secondary characters in this novel. I got a good sense of the narrator, but everyone else felt like a jumble. And the reveal lacked the shock I was hoping for. But its a good mystery and a fun read.

There was not one sympathetic character in this book. Each woman was selfish, conniving, controlling and generally despicable. Each working for her own means and goals irrespective of true individual or collective harm that she was creating. Nothing worked for me, not the characters, nor the format, nor the plot. It was a total miss.

I do appreciate the copy from Random House - Ballantine and NetGalley for a copy.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy of this book!

The premise of the book was interesting as a modern ghost story with some hauntings, without the cliches of old Victorian settings and black lace and taffeta. That said, I found the characters to be written a little flat, a little forgetful. I didn’t necessarily care about what happened to them, I felt like there was an emotional tie to them that was missing to keep me wanting to know more of and about them.

Five old friends from college, one disappears and is presumed dead 15 years earlier, the other four gather to “find closure” and follow through with their own agendas, most of which we don’t know about when the book begins. This is a very common genre of books at the moment, so the writing has to be superb, or there has to be a fun twist on the common tropes, or the characters have to be deliciously likable (or unlikable). This book has none of that.

I don’t understand why these girls were friends in the first place, since most of them are bitchy and mean to each other, both in the past and the present. And the only one who might have a chance is spineless and really bad at sneaking around to find answers.

I hate to say a book isn’t unique. But it’s not, and the only thing that makes it stand apart from others for me is the fact that the only character I liked was the grandfather that I wasn’t supposed to.

Thanks to netgalley for this ARC.

Fifteen years ago, five friends, Vanessa, Emily, Brittany, Paige, and Lydia, spent a weekend at Brittany’s family’s winery on the Oregon coast. After a wine infused evening, Vanessa disappeared. Emily always wondered if she had something to do with that disappearance. When she thinks she sees Vanessa at a local coffee shop, she calls together the other three women for a weekend reunion at the winery to try to figure out just what happened.

This book kept my interest throughout the story but it really I picked up the last 20% of the book. Worth a read.

Scenes of the Crime was so good Jilly Gagnon is such a good writer! Great story, fantastic writing and this book was so fun!

Loved it. 5 girlfriends go on a trip to a remote winery in Oregon. One of them disappears. Years later, one of the girlfriends wants to write the story of her disappearance but must find out what really happened. She invites the 3 remaining girls to join her at the winery and recreate the scenes of the crime!

The perfect vacation with friends goes wrong, very wrong. I was immersed in this story constantly trying to guess whodunnit! This was a great mystery.
Thank you #bantam and #NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

I loved the interesting plot that Gagnon provided in this novel!! A recreation of a trip to solve a murder/disappearance? Where do I sign up?!?!

I thoroughly enjoyed the twists and turns this novel took me on. I also really enjoyed the flashbacks to the past as well as glimpses of the screenwriting that Emily was doing throughout b

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced copy of Scenes of the Crime by Jilly Gagnon.

This story was interesting and I enjoyed the style of some scenes written like a script. However, I feel like the story was lackluster as were the characters.

ARC provided in exchange for an honest review.

This book gave me hope with its complex storytelling and friendships that are struggling in the face of a friend that went missing more than a decade before. The part that really confused and irritated me at times is how most of it is set up as a screenplay since the main character that is telling the story is also a sitcom writer that wants to elevate her career. So most of it is hard to tell if it happened in real life or something she’s writing about for her show. Other than that I really liked all the misdirection and surprises that come up throughout regarding her friend’s disappearance. I would recommend to anyone that likes mysteries and friends coming together to try to solve them.

Sometimes books take a bit to get into. This one drug out until almost the end before it got engrossing. This book had a very promising premise. A group of girlfriends get together again on a girl’s trip to get some closure on the disappearance of their friend years ago. This was a let down for me personally.