


Discuss how each of the victims were described in the media. Why do you think the author chose to tell this story across two time periods and two points of view? Do you think it was effective? Why or why not?Ģ. I don’t want to ruin things, so I’ll end by saying that the climax and ending of this book are deeply satisfying.1. The ending more than makes up for the clumsiness, even though I started to suspect how things would conclude a few chapters out. James used the supernatural to keep things moving and to maintain the suspense. There are some moments of clumsy writing (hints of a love triangle, Viv and Carly not being quite different enough so I kept losing track of which character I was reading), but the mysteries in this novel kept me entertained throughout. The Sun Down Motel is packed with twists and turns. Before long, Carly and her new Fell friends are on the trail of the same killer Viv was trying to find. As soon as Carly gets into town, she starts asking questions and following the few clues the Viv left behind. Carly and her mother have lived with not knowing what happened to Viv for far too long. Because she was an adult and planning on moving to New York, no one really investigated. The second discovery leads Viv back to the first discovery those ghosts are not resting in peace.ĭecades later, Viv’s niece, Carly, arrives in Fell to find out what happened to her aunt. Second, she starts to see the ghosts of people whose deaths were connected to the motel. First, Viv learns that several women have been brutally murdered in recent years. The job is a bit of luck, but things start to get strange almost immediately. In 1982, Viv Delaney has taken a job at the Sun Down Motel, a place on the edge of Fell, when she realizes that it’s going to cost more than planned to get all the way to New York. Oh, and there are ghosts, to make things just that much more interesting.

Two women, in two different eras, are on the trail of a killer that the police have forgotten about in the strange little town of Fell, New York.

I especially like the moment when the guilty verdict comes down and the killer faces justice. I really like it when the crucial clue turns up, when someone asks the right question, or when the killer messes up. For me, a big part of the attraction of true crime is seeing the killer caught even if it’s been years.
