Spider to the Fly

J. H. Markert’s Spider to the Fly stressed me out in the best way, though I had to remind myself to breathe for about the last quarter of it.

Ellie Isles is a true-crime writer obsessed with an active serial killer, and the more clues she gets to his identity, the more twists and turns she (and we) have to follow. Besides a satisfyingly complex mystery, there are elements of the Gothic as we learn more about Ellie’s childhood in children’s and foster homes, secret twins, and a wealthy couple as small town royalty, true horror as we learn about the abuses that she and the other children endured as well as details of the murders (spiders!), and even social commentary with the question, Can you change a person’s nature?

My only advice is, don’t pick this up until you have time to finish it, because you won’t want to put it down.

Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review. Pub. date: 9/2/25

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