Review: Scrap by Calla Henkel

Scrap by Calla Henkel

Blurb from Goodreads:

A true-crime obsessed young artist is drawn into the lives of an obscenely wealthy family in this fantastically entertaining thriller from Calla Henkel, author of Other People’s Clothes Recently dumped and stuck with a mortgage, artist Esther Ray wants to burn the world, but instead, she reluctantly accepts a scrapbooking job from the deliriously wealthy Naomi Duncan. The scrapbooks, a secret birthday gift for Naomi’s husband, Bryce, trace the Duncan’s 25-year marriage. The Esther must include every piece of paper she’s been sent, must sign an NDA, and must only contact Naomi using the burner phone provided. Otherwise she’ll spoil the surprise. As Esther binges true-crime podcasts and works through the near-200 boxes of Duncan detritus, she finds herself infatuated with the gilded family—until, mid-project, Naomi dies suspiciously. When Esther becomes convinced the husband killed her, she uses the scrapbooks’ trove of information to insert herself into the Duncans’ lives to prove it. But the more Esther investigates, the further she is dragged back to the scorched earth of her past and the famous artist who paid her to disappear. Laced with pitch-black humor and conspiratorial unease, Scrap is a razor-sharp examination of wealth and power, art and truth, of the line between justice and revenge—and who gets to cross it.

My Review:

This is one of the best books I've read all year.  The ending was a bit abrupt or else this would easily have been 4.5 stars for me.  I still couldn't put this down -- I didn't know what would happen next and I was shocked more than once.  If you like Gone Girl, give this one a try... truly surprising and so, so good!!

Scrap comes out next week on August 20, 2024, and you can purchase HERE!  

There was something about the unspooling of a sociopath over computer speakers that enabled me to fall into my deepest state of concentration while binding books. Someone is always guilty-this is the intrinsic propulsion of true crime, and after countless hours I was an expert on cell phone towers, cadaver dogs, rogue psychics, genealogists, fibers, and credit card trails. I could recognize a psychopath from speech patterns and I was deeply familiar with the sparked flint of a serial killer's eye. Now that I look back, it was almost as if I'd been preparing for Naomi's murder, lifting the metaphorical weights, readying myself to unwind my red ball of yarn and trace her life on my wall.