"Set in a Small Town" - Mystery Thrillers with a Common Backdrop

The world of mystery and suspense fiction is vast and filled with all varieties of stories. Nonetheless, in all these stories, there is a central puzzle that must be solved. A question is posed at the beginning of the story and readers are promised answers at the end. A good mystery should grab its readers' attention with an intriguing question and then urge them to stay invested till the resolution. Part of the intrigue is associated with the central puzzle itself. The rest of the intrigue is associated with its backdrop. Just as an old, creaking house feels more spooky when one enters it on a quiet night, the place where an incident occurs gives the much-needed context to our question and compels us to think about why the question is important. Another important aspect of the story is the set of main characters who undergo all sorts of twists and turns to resolve this great puzzle. The journey that these characters undergo is central to the overarching theme of the story. Readers might not feel invested in the revelations of the story if they do not believe in the characters or their journey. Therefore, an apt combination of an incident, its backdrop, and a believable main character is required to capture the readers' attention and keep them engaged throughout the story. In this blog, I would like to talk about one such combination and the books in which I have encountered them.

In stark contrast with big cities, where one expects petty crimes to be quite common, small towns are mostly considered safe. Everyone usually knows everyone. Therefore, criminal incidences are not only exceptions but they also affect almost everybody in the town. A person gone missing or found to be murdered will raise a greater concern in a small town as it will upset the town's assurance of a calm and quiet atmosphere. And hence, we see that a large number of mystery thrillers are set in small towns. Not only that, a large number of these stories have similar protagonists. They are usually someone who is originally from the town but has moved out due to some reason. They either return to the town because of a mysterious incident or a mysterious event occurs when they happen to be back in the town. This incident forces our protagonists to remain in the town and readers get to see the whole tale unfold through their eyes. Having the protagonists belong to the town and then having them move out for a while provides the reader with characters who are equal parts associated and disassociated with the narrative. With such characters, the readers get to experience the story in a very intimate yet objective manner.

In this blog, I would like to chat about three stories, viz., Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn, All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda, and Into the Water by Paula Hawkins, which have the backdrop of a small town where our protagonist has returned to resolve a spooky mystery.

Sharp Objects is a psychological thriller. It follows our main character "Camille Preaker" who is a journalist and is assigned to cover the murders of two teen girls in her small hometown. At first, she is very reluctant to go back to her hometown as she despises the idea of meeting up with her mother and half-sister. However, after a little push from her boss, she decides to head to her hometown. The plot follows Camille as she tries to make sense of the two murders that have happened in her hometown, intertwined with a few glimpses of her past. The plot gets intriguing when it is revealed that both the girls were somehow associated with Camille's mother. And Camille starts doubting her mother. From here we follow Camille as she struggles with her present and past to get to the bottom of the mystery. This story is a psychological thriller for good reasons as the characters are crazy, dark, and twisted. The mother is intimidating; she likes to exert control over all her kids and is very disappointed in our main lead as she does not always listen to her. She comes out as a nasty person at times and at times she is extremely sweet and caring. The half-sister - Amma - is also a confusing character. She is a typical mean girl by the day and is a clever and sweet person by the night. The characters are the strength of this story. Even though I do not agree with each and every character's portrayal, I understand their motivation. Also, it is very difficult to see the ending coming. At the end of the book, when one feels like the story has ended and things are just wrapping up, a sudden twist tells us that there's more to the story. I must say that even though I liked the twist at the end, I did not like the pace at which the twist was revealed. There is a big revelation just before this twist and I never got any chance to wrap my head around it before having to deal with the last twist. Issues related to mental health and the associated everyday struggle are discussed in the narrative which I highly appreciated.

All the Missing Girls is a story about the disappearance of two girls. "Nicolette Farrell" leaves her hometown when her friend disappears. Ten years later, Nicolette decides to return to her hometown to take care of her father and within days of her return another girl, Annaleise Carter goes missing. The readers now follow Nicolette around to find a resolution to both the disappearances. The narration is handled in quite an interesting manner. The story is told in the reverse order from Day 15 to Day 1 where Day 1 marks the disappearance of Annaleise. This gives a different kind of mystery to all the reveals. We realize that the characters already know what has transpired, and it is just us, the readers, who are in the dark. Even though I was impressed with the backward narration device, I was not impressed with the narration itself. I was also not a fan of the choices that the main character made throughout the course of this book, which made me dislike her a bit, and therefore, I could not enjoy the end reveal as much as I would have liked.

Into the Water is a thriller that starts when a single mother turns up dead at the bottom of a river that runs through a small town. But then it is not the first death in recent times. There has been a dark history of people ending up dead near the river. The departed single mother is the sister of our main lead "Jules Abbott" who returns to her hometown to take care of her niece. Jules and her sister have had issues in their past, but that does not stop Jules from investigating her sister's death. Almost everybody but Jules believes that her sister has committed suicide. We follow Jules and a bunch of other characters as they come to terms with the reality of all the deaths that have plagued the town. The story builds up the atmosphere of a chilly and creepy town perfectly. However, there are way too many characters in the story. We end up getting small snippets of information from these characters but never do we get the feeling that we have a complete picture. This does add a little bit of intrigue to the narration, but it also adds a lot of confusion. Since there are multiple characters, the readers do not get enough time with any of them and so forming any connection with the characters becomes difficult. If readers do not feel connected with the characters, the impact of the revelations at the ends is slightly dampened. I did not have any strong feelings for the outcome of the story, which is unfortunate as I always expect a certain level of thrill from my murder mysteries.

As one can see, all these three books have the same backdrop of a small town and the main lead is a woman with issues in her past that have made her leave her home and make a life somewhere else. However, she returns due to an incident and is gripped by its suspense. Even with a similar backdrop and main character, these three stories are very different from one another. Sharp Objects dwells deep into its characters and provides a glimpse into their day-to-day struggles. All the Missing Girls takes an interesting route to tackle the missing persons' narrative. And Into the Water gives us snippets of information from its huge cast of characters that can be stitched together to form the bigger picture.