THE SUN DOWN MOTEL

5 stars out of 5

Do you believe in zombies, ghosts and things that go bump in the night? Neither do I, unless I'm in the middle of a Stephen King novel - or this one. What could be more perfect for reading over a couple of icy cold winter nights?

The story takes place in the quintessential creepy place: A broken-down motel in small-town upstate New York, where lodgers - at least those who actually exist - typically stay one night, pay in cash and leave at odd hours. In 1982, a young night clerk (yes, there was one, if only to deter vagrants from trashing the already disheveled rooms) named Vivian Delaney mysteriously disappears - never to be found. That bothers Carly Kirk, a college student who happens to be Viv's niece. Long a lover of murder stories, in 2017 she leaves college and sets out for remote Fell, New York, to look into her aunt's disappearance.

Carly finds an apartment with another young woman, and once she sees the Sun Down Motel, she realizes the best way to learn more is by working there. Low and behold, the mostly absent owner needs a night clerk - and you guessed it, Carly gets the job. Chapters flip back and forth to the perspectives of Viv and Carly (switching so often that I nearly got whiplash until halfway through, when I was able to keep each time frame in perspective). Almost from her first night at the desk, Carly hears and sees strange things - some of the same things that, readers learn through those flashbacks, Viv experienced as well. Clearly, this motel has sordid secrets; and if Viv has gone to her grave as Carly suspects, it'll take some digging to unearth them.

But terrified as she may be, Carly is nothing if not determined. Gradually, she identifies people who were there when Viv disappeared - some human, some cooperative and others not so much on both scores - but just as her aunt did all those years ago, she pushes on at her own peril. Then and now start coming together near the end, bringing some not entirely unexpected "surprises." Needless to say, you won't learn anything more about that from me.

Without a doubt, this is a book that reeled me in and I didn't want to put down (and except for sleeping, I didn't). Definitely a winner, and I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for allowing me to get a pre-release peek.

The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James (Berkley, February 2020); 336 pp.