Dead Girl Blues (2020)

The Score: 8 out of 10

When a young woman dies in Willow Zulawski’s arms, it sets in motion a chain of events that will push her to the brink of madness.

A mysterious video is the only clue, but as Willow digs deeper into the murky world of snuff movies, those closest to her start turning up dead. Someone out there will stop at nothing to silence her.

After all, when killing is business, what’s one more dead body?

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The tl;dr Review:

While not one of David Sodergren’s best, Dead Girl Blues is still a good read with plenty of twists, gore, pulpy mystery, and suspense. Willow’s journey leads her to all kinds of encounters ranging from unpleasant to outright dangerous, and it’s all done in Sodergren’s particularly creative way. Worth checking out, especially if you’re a fan of Sodergren’s particular ability to twist common concepts into something brand new and entirely different.

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The Review:

At 276 pages Sodergren packs quite a heavy tale. Threading through Edinburgh’s various settings, Dead Girl Blues proves to be an intriguing mystery.

While this all sounds like it’ll be mostly praise, it’s worth pointing out that the descriptive writing feels a bit out of sync with things that go on. Some chapters are perfectly aligned in terms of structure, but others feel just a bit disjointed. It doesn’t feel intentional, it just feels like Sodergren got lost in a creative thought process and forgot to go back and re-orient. 

Still though, story-wise there’s plenty to chew on. Creepy sleazebags, characters with deceptive layers, a killer who seemingly appears and vanishes without a trace, and settings both inside and outside of Edinburgh. Plus the snuff video angle adds some extra bit of the gruesome and disturbing.  It all chalks up to quite a harrowing mystery with suspense, tension, death, and despair along the way.

Also those wanting Sodergren’s extreme violence will find that here too. Bodies get brutalized in detail, with all the gore and blood you could want. Combo that with some especially creative build ups to each death and you have a slasher horror that goes heavy on the murder.

Dead Girl Blues is worth the read for both Sodergren fans and newcomers, but it’s not the best of his work. 

-Joseph

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