Poppy Stringer is an influencer with a following in the thousands and a big problem. She had a tough childhood in foster homes and was finally adopted by a couple who blatantly ignored her, no matter what wonderful grades she brought home. She did not want her five year old to lack anything materially, so she bought a luxury house at a great address in Palm Springs with a massive pool. While she makes her feel-good videos and instagram posts, her daughter misses the love and attention she feels she should have, and this makes Poppy feel guilty-but the night job that really pays for this lifestyle is not something she would ever tell her daughter about. Her neighbor and best friend Noah is the designated babysitter on nights she has to make money...as a grave robber.
Since bodies are stored in the morgue before burial, Poppy has set herself up as an organ harvester for donation groups. When she gets word of an appropriate corpse (without friends or relatives), she collects the corpse from some unwitting morgue employee and packs it in her refrigerator van to be sold to shooting galleries whose customers prefer bodies to paper targets-well, it's a living.
Unfortunately, her favorite rockstar pianist, Eddie Michaels, met an untimely and gruesome death by runaway car. It made her sad and she started crying, mascara running down her cheek. Unwilling to lose the moment, she started photographing her reaction and streaming it to her followers-everything she does gets monetized. So when she gets an anonymous call from a woman who wants Poppy to pick up Eddie's corpse tonight for a five million dollar fee, she only has to think about a few minutes. It might be a federal trap or it might be the best night of her career. She's in.
Thus begins the wild ride that is Tingle's new novel. Turns out that Eddie is undead and has mayhem and bloody carnage on tonight's agenda, and Poppy is the designated driver. He also has a list of people to visit while Poppy gets to stay in the car under some kind of paralysis-what is he doing and when is it her turn?
I read the book in one day-while it was terrifying and ghastly, it had that "you just can't look away" quality that a well-written horror story strives for. And did I mention that the author uses humor to frame the story, making the horrible "entertaining?" Read it if you dare.
Reviewed by Donna Ballard
July 7, 2026
Reserve a physical copy - Coming soon
No comments:
Post a Comment