Mt Review for Havoc by Christopher Bollen, read by Maggi-Meg Reed
⚠️ Warning – mini spoiler alert at the end of my review!
I'm still unsure how I feel about Havoc, two months on. It certainly wasn't what I was expecting. I had imagined a sweet old lady, living out her days in a hotel on the banks of the Nile. It definitely isn't that! Dark is a huge understatement. Maggie is evil, and Otto is an eight-year-old boy who is already meeting his nemesis.
There were parts that were incredibly slow-paced and others that were so fast I had trouble keeping up. It was quite a contrast!
The ending was totally unexpected, twisted and dramatic, with a few WTF moments, especially in the last few chapters. Maggi-May Reed did a good job narrating this one, and her portrayal of Maggie was brilliant. 🎧
And now for the important bit... THE CAT DIES! 🐈💔 You need to know this so you can mentally prepare yourself for the loss. Any animal death in a book is unnecessary in my opinion – I'd much rather the author killed a person! 😂
Thank you to Harper Audio and Libro.fm for the free copy of Havoc by Christopher Bollen. All thoughts are entirely my own. 💕📚
The war between age and youth has never been so vicious.
Eighty-one-year-old widow Maggie Burkhardt came to the Royal Karnak to escape. But not in quite the same way as most other guests who are relaxing at this threadbare luxury hotel on the banks of the Nile. Maggie, a compulsive fixer of other people’s lives, may have found herself in hot water at her last hotel in Switzerland and just might have needed to get out of there fast... But here at the Royal Karnak, under the hot Saharan sun, she has a comfortable suite, a loyal confidante in the hotel manager, Ahmed, and a handful of sympathetic friends, similar “long-termers” who understand her still-vivid grief for her late husband, Peter. Here, she is merely the sweet old lady in Room 309.
One morning, however, Maggie notices a new arrival at a mournful-looking young mother named Tess and her impish eight-year-old, Otto. Eager to help, Maggie invites them into her world. But it isn’t long before Maggie realizes that in her longing to be a part of their family, she has let in an enemy much stronger than she bargained for. In scrawny, homely Otto, Maggie Burkhardt has finally met her match.
Christopher Bollen is a writer who lives in New York City. He regularly writes about art, literature, and culture and is the author of six novels, numerous short stories, articles, essays, and interviews.
His first novel, Lightning People, was published in 2011. His second novel, Orient, was published in 2015. He then wrote The Destsroyers, A Beautiful Crime, and The Lost Americans .
His new novel HAVOC was published December 3, 2024 by Harper.
Describing his novels, The Daily Telegraph notes that "Bollen writes expansive, psychologically probing novels in the manner of Updike, Eugenides and Franzen, but he is also an avowed disciple of Agatha Christie.
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