The Literate Kitty

A popular true-crime podcaster—with secrets of her own—who focuses on unsolved crimes.   A confused, late-20s woman—recovering from a terrible accident, and grieving a pair of losses—whom the podcaster approaches about the latest story she wants to share with her eager subscribers.   An angry father, who doesn’t really understand his daughter—her choices, who she is—but is dead-set against her participation in the podcast, knowing what it will do to their family.   A grandfather—now dead—forced to leave his beloved hometown in Iceland some forty years ago and relocate to far-off California with his young son, following the tragic deaths of his wife and infant daughter.   And the small Icelandic town—Bifröst—where the tragedy still, somehow, feels fresh.    And... where another horrible event may even now be taking place.   The stage is set for Melissa Larsen’s latest mystery/suspense,  The Lost House .     When a little boy found the bod...

As much as we (probably) hate to own up to it, most of us—to one degree or another—harbor a perverse desire to see Really Bad Things.  For some, that craving gets fulfilled via rags (or now, their online successors) dealing in sensational “news”… with headlines like “Batboy Eats Own Mother!” and “Woman Undergoes 128 Surgeries to Look Like Barbie!”. For others, it’s binging on trash TV, from the Jerry Springers of the world to gems like “ Toddlers in Tiaras ”. And for a lot of people, the wish to see bad stuff might take the form of the simple (but incredibly-annoying-to-others) act of always slowing waaaaaaaay down to rubberneck at any accident (on either side of the freeway). As for me, I’m much more fascinated with stories (whether true or figments of someone’s imagination) about how strange, warped, or downright evil that people can be. Why? Because, as scores of real stories attest, we never truly know what anyone else is thinking… plotting… or doing… from the merely...