Maggie is an elderly American lady who, after losing her husband has decamped to a series of hotels. After a sojourn in Switzerland, she has now ended up in Egypt, in a hotel in Luxor. She likes the staff and the other guests, the comfort of the new routines. This is set just after the first lockdown, when travel is happening but things are not yet back to normal. Or what passes for normal in Maggie's life, because, well, she has secrets... She may look elderly and innocent, but she likes to interfere and sometimes that interfering in other peoples lives has consequences.

When a mother arrives at the hotel, with her young son, Maggie senses that all is not what it should be. She is at her best when she has people with problems around her and can arrange their lives. As well as the elderly appearing to be unthreatening, children also have that appearance. Young Otto though may well be more than able to both deter Maggie's machinations and, in fact, surpass them.

I really enjoyed 'Orient' by Christopher Bollen and was pleased to read his latest worl. This is a dark read, a cat and mouse attempt by two people who are often ignored by society - the elderly and the young - to outwit and outmaneuver each other. On the one side, there is Maggie, who is desperate to maintain her new life and on the other there is Otto, who is very much her equal at manipulation. This is a great read I recommend both the author and the novel highly.

Absolutely brilliant and insane. I went in knowing very little about the book and I’m glad because it made it even more of a wild ride. The building of tension as the protagonist unravels was excellent and the finale did not disappoint!

Thank you to Harper Collins and NetGalley for the ARC!

"HAVOC" by Christopher Bollen relies on the untrustworthy narrator of an 80+ year old widow who spent several years hopping from one luxury hotel to another seemingly as a way to cope with her grief. Having a habit to interfere with other people's lives, Maggie encounters her antagonist in a character of an 8 year old child, who - filtered through Maggie's narrative - presents as an individual with sociopathic tendencies.

As the action progresses, it becomes clearer and clearer that the protagonist is becoming more disturbed, paranoid and unstable. But it also becomes apparent that it's not just the feud with the young boy that's causing it, as the reason for Maggie's mental state lies in the past that's catching up with her.

However, this novel needs some serious trigger warnings as some motives may be disturbing for some readers: sexual assault on a minor; parent with mental health issues; [implied] animal cruelty.

Eighty-one-year-old Maggie Burkhardt has left it all behind. After the death of her husband and the tragic loss of her daughter Julia, she fled her native Wisconsin and has spent the last five years ping-ponging between the world’s luxury hotels. Now she has finally come to rest somewhere she can imagine staying forever: the Royal Karnak Hotel in Luxor.

I loved this book from the first page. It is so wonderfully written. The descriptions, it only of places but of situations and thoughts are fabulous. The conflict between the old and the young in this cat and mouse tussle is brilliant. It’s a hard to put down novel and has a great twist at the end.

What a bizarre book. I enjoyed reading it for the most part, the concept of an elderly lady feuding with an 8 year old boy was a strange enough concept that I was intrigued to read. It’s darkly hilarious in parts, but also poignant and sad in others. I read it over the course of an afternoon and found I couldn’t put it down as I had absolutely no idea where it was going. A good read.

This is a strange book and I'm not sure that it entirely worked for me but it was certainly different. It is told from the point of view of an unreliable narrator, Maggie an 81 year old woman who has a hobby of staying at lovely hotels and then intefering int he lives of guests whom she perceives to be unhappy. During the pandemic she is holed up in a hotel in Egypt ,as is 8 year old Otto ( and his mother) who is wise beyond his years and clocks what Maggie is up to and so begins a battle of wits and a darkly comic tale.

Buckle up, you're in for a wild ride. I had an absolute blast reading this. Otto and Maggie are wild characters and their behavior is shocking lol! If you're looking for an Egypt-based, pandemic-themed riot, then be sure to check out Havoc.

4/5 stars

Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins for the ARC!

Havoc is a novel about two people locked in a battle to beat each other, whilst staying in a hotel in Egypt. Maggie is eighty-one and hiding out in Egypt following a situation at her previous hotel in Switzerland, thanks to her habit to interfering with strangers' personal lives when she believes their relationships to be unhappy. When an eight-year-old boy, Otto, arrives at the hotel Maggie is staying at with his mother, she immediately wants to befriend them, but that quickly sours when it turns out Otto has worked out what she does, and soon they're caught in an escalating battle, starting to impact others at the hotel as well.

This is a darkly comic book told from Maggie's perspective, and as might be apparent from the summary, you can't always trust what she says. The concept is really around these two duplicitous characters, both unlikely for this kind of genre, trying to beat the other in increasingly dark ways, but with an undercurrent of exploring Maggie's past and what has led her to this point. It is a fun book, with some notable twisty moments, and the setting is focused on travellers staying in Egypt, occasionally poking fun at them and their lack of knowledge about the locals and the place they're in. The ending is quite sudden, really relying on a final twist, but it did feel like the rest of the book paved the way for it.

Havoc often feels like a film and though the blurb I read compared it to The Talented Mr Ripley, I would also draw a comparison with Bullet Train, as the plot really plays with expectations of children and older people and what they can do. It's an enjoyable book, good for when you want something that plays out like a darkly comic thriller without too much thinking needed.

3.5 stars.
Maggie, who is an overbearing and compulsive person in her 80s meets her 8-year-old match, Otto.
They are both unlikeable and devious, and their feud is engaging and entertaining. Well, until it is isn’t. Some dark, questionable instances and the ending stained my enjoyment.
It is dark and well-written, but a tad too dark for my taste. I would like to see this as a film, and enjoy my slight discomfort.