I Shot the Devil

April 29, 2020
Richell Prize-winner Ruth McIver’s debut crime thriller is a powder-keg with a slow burning fuse that has you racing to figure out which of the shadowy, unreliable suspects ‘did it’—and leaves you wondering if perhaps the unstable narrator, Erin Sloane, is more involved that she is letting on. Brimming with torment and accusation, the novel opens in the thick of a horrific crime from Erin’s past that captured the minds of the small affluent community in Southport, NY and left two local teens dead amid whispers of satanic sacrifice. McIver slowly reveals layers of her characters and their relationships, and masterfully drip feeds the reader clues as to the true nature of everyone involved. Crooked cops, abusive boyfriends and a bunch of metal misfits were the perfect fodder for a sensationalised media storm that painted over the truth and hid the suffering that many of Southport’s residents chose to turn a blind eye to. Perfectly balanced and terrifically twisting, I Shot the Devil is for fans of Alex Marwood, Paula Hawkins and Gillian Flynn—it scratches the surface of a dormant crime and exposes the deep trauma and lies that run beneath. Kate Frawley is the manager of the Sun Bookshop.

September 2, 2024
McIver’s propulsive if overstuffed debut follows a hard-drinking journalist as she attempts to solve a Long Island cold case. On Halloween 1994, five teenagers went into the woods in Suffolk County, N.Y., to perform a satanic ritual while high on psychedelics. Only three came out alive: Andre Villiers was killed by his friends, and police shot ringleader Ricky Heller at the scene. Teenager Erin Sloane was home that night, drinking to suppress her anger that Ricky stood her up for a date. Sixteen years later, Erin is still mired in booze and working as a writer for the local monthly magazine when she’s assigned a retrospective story about the case. Interviewing the survivors and their families opens old wounds and inflicts new ones, including being stalked by her ex-boyfriend, Danny Quinlan-Walsh, who was one of the survivors and is desperate to put an end to Erin’s reporting. McIver initially makes good on her intriguing premise, providing a handful of truly jaw-dropping twists, but the secret betrayals and brutal criminal acts begin to strain credulity as they pile high in the final act. Here’s hoping McIver’s next outing is more finely tuned. Agent: Shane Salerno, Story Factory.