Book Review || Senseless (2025)
"The mutilated body of a young woman is discovered in the desert on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Media outlets are quick to surmise this is the work of a budding serial killer."
: 🌕 : SPOILER ALERT : 🌕 :
It is important to note that most of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the book's subject matters & those detailed in my review overwhelming. I suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward, I will be writing about matters that contain reflections on graphic violence, gore, rape, sexual violence, physical assault, sexism, & others.
“It was a gradual realization, something he didn’t understand was happening until he was already in the thick of it, and by then it was too late to deny the thoughts that plagued him.”
What draws the eye to gore? The troll’s duty, charged for admission to the social world of human complexities, is required for the yellow-nubbed toenail to slice the bridge's stone. Yonder, the river moves slowly, tinged with the orange of blue-dyed blood, red in the crisp air of spring.
In this scene, the famished reader anticipates their turn—the moment when they will soon be able to bend their backs to the wind & teeter over the edge of a landmark like many others, where surely, more dead lay than are raised.
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When deciding upon a story that will match the sensation of the bridge & its invisible feather of possibilities, a reader may hope to find the tormented soul they house inside. Within their hopes may lay in repose the desire to meet a character whose traits & demeanour encourage trust & lead one to wander back through the bush into the clearing where the morbid scene of coiling blood grooves itself into the soil, between the blades of greenery.
As an introduction, I hope the setting I have crafted lingers. My experience with Malfi’s books has been, overall, positive. That is to say, the scenes he has crafted have remained in my mind like a looming shadow in the night, unescapable unless blinded.
Much of what the author writes seems to pay homage in slight & interwoven ways to renowned works, often categorized as Classics. In this approach, the reader may join him in appreciating the bulb’s brightness in the darkened shelves of the literary world.
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When I learned that Malfi would be publishing a new book, I was ecstatic. Since first being introduced to his talents via “Black Mouth” (2022) I have devoured, with patience, further works by the author.
When deciding upon an appropriate adjective to use here in this review, in an attempt to make clear the prowess of his horror, I find myself nibbling the ink of a slew of possible words that may reveal to readers what they will find in his stories. Yet, I wish not to reveal too much. The joy in reading Malfi’s books arises when a reader comes face to face with the ghost of their past, the ghost of a story once forgotten, coming around again to swallow them hole.
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In essence, this is a story about the murder of two women. The main character (Bill) Renney is a Detective in a Los Angeles County where, only a year apart, two women are found brutally murdered in the desert. The cruel abandonment of the women, with their eyes carved out, their ears cut off, tongues eviscerated, & noses sliced clean, acted as a brutal reminder for Renney of the terrible fate that awaits women who dare exist in the world alongside such freakishly evil men as their killers.
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The story at hand is graphic. Both women suffer immeasurably & through no fault of their own, are chosen as targets for the brutal tortures that two men decided to inflict on them. Due to the similarities that exist in the non-fictional world, readers may find the content of this story overwhelming. Renney never solves the case of M.J.’s murder. Although he acts as an accessory with M.J.’s husband murdering the man who was likely the perpetrator of her death, the reality of this void of relief seeps through every aspect of this book.
What renders the plot all the more tormented is the near apathy of the world around the women. Although their deaths were noted & viewed as shocking events, the actions of those around them do not demonstrate a fulsome understanding of what has taken place.
One may note that it would be impossible for a person to truly understand what it means to be faced with death at the hands of another person. One might also note that, as life goes on, it feels regressive to remain where the dead stay rotting. Therefore, one must ask who will care about the women who are victimized by cruelty.
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I suppose here we have come to the point in the story that disturbed me the most. Important to note is that I am not someone for whom the written word necessarily overwhelms me. I have no issue reading ghost stories at night or delving into details of true crime out in the city where it blooms.
While reading, I found myself reflecting on the brazen cruelty that exists in the world. Readers who are more sensitive to descriptions of terror, gore, gender-based violence, & other such faculties may have an altogether different experience with this story.
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Renney is not a character who is one a reader might root for. Regardless of a person’s interpretation or experience with the material, the main character is nearly incompetent in his role, one that is meant to bring justice to those from whom it has been stripped. It is difficult to be brought to the forefront here; Renney is not an intellectual man, which is not to say that he is stupid, but he has little education & rather minimal experience with complex individuals.
This is an odd trait for him to have. He boasts of cues & trip-ups in speech that might highlight to him when a person is lying or diverting attention yet, in reality, his worldview is very limited. This annoyed me in some way. Whereas Renney was having intimate moments with the phantasm of his dead wife, the families of two young women were in gruesome grief waiting for answers. Why would someone do this to these women?
Renney never answers their question. Perhaps a reader may link the title of the book to the actions taken towards the women. Their brutal experiences were senseless, yet they were not, in fact, without meaning nor did they arise out of thin air.
Both men involved in the deaths of these women came to the precipice of their decisions because they felt it was their right to choose. These men had the agency to slice a woman’s body to shreds, to brutalize them until they died, to force them into demeaning binds with rope & fly traps, all because they wanted to kill them.
It is senseless in that one may choose to believe that these men had no wits about them, but this would be hoping for the world to be a place of romance & utopian clarity. Will this leave a reader with feelings of remorse? Will the reader feel grief as they remember that M.J. died as a result of her injuries? Will readers wish the death of those who employ it like the Cryptkeeper himself?
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I find myself ruminating on the logistics of the crimes. Although this book seems to draw inspiration, as an ode or a prod in the ribs to the Irish author’s vampirette legends of old, namely Bram Stocker’s “Dracula” (1897), Malfi has also taken the lead by including a more brutalized truth. Although the villain in these tales of lore creeps around in the darkness of night, what makes him all the more terrifying is his ability to seamlessly immerse himself in daylight activities.
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For readers who may wander the periphery of this story & find themselves at odds with the material, the plot contains other notable mentions that might draw their attention. Of note is the paranormal midnight mass between Renney, his wife, & Roy Orbison. The mentally clocked-out Psychiatrist who kept crime scene photographs at arm’s reach of his patients who were in the throws of mental maladies may perplex a person who has a desire for forethought.
When it comes down to pacing, the story soars like a sparrow; at times, questionable in & of itself. There are other such times wherein the characters seem to act independently of the story. Each of these individuals existed in their own world, one that hardly seemed to tie into the imagery of Los Angeles that is beloved in media & influence. Questions arise such as, why would the Psychiatrist trust the Detective with his crime? Was he so good at his profession that he was confident in his assumption that Renney was a broken & crooked cop?
Yet, perhaps, because of this fact, the scenes in the desert—that reminded me an awful lot of the series “Midnight Mass” (2021)—may serve to introduce readers to the complexity of their surroundings.
I would be remorseful if I neglected to make clear my feelings of revulsion. There is so much potential for a person to do good that makes me ballistic in the crevices of my mind at the truth. That they did nothing instead. Reactivity hardly suffices to make right the catastrophic wrong that one knew was possible.
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As I finish this review, several days have passed since I put down the book. For the most part, I worked through the material at night, in an apartment nestled deep in a city center. The landscape that is presented in this plot is not one that mirrors my own but, there are enough similarities for readers to puzzle pieces into their comforts, which may leave them with the dread that the author seems to have wanted to share with his audience.
I wonder what will come next. Which Classic piece of literature will inspire the modern renaissance of the Ripper who slithers through the city in a formidable & well-tailored coat? Where within the bounds of the literary world will the next circus sink its malevolence to the tune of Pink Elephants on Parade?
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Ultimately, Malfi has a fine-toothed comb ready to peel through the tendrils of his readers’ heads. His story is well-thought-out & written in a way that will leave readers feeling like they ran a race towards the edge of a cliff, forgetting that below the rocks would not softly welcome them to victory.
Perhaps readers may venture into feelings of disturbance or annoyance upon opening the pages of this story. Orbison’s discography may soothe a tune of sorrow or offer a melody as a backdrop of phosphorus yellow brilliance, that of a sandman who rumbles through the house; the reader may intone a new dawn for their feelings.
Why was this story filled with characters, each more annoying than the next? Why was Maureen so inept at her grown age? Why was there a monkey mask? What became of the abandoned book on the bar?
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There is a cruel familiarity that is highlighted in the dusk of simplicity. Although the unique features of this story remind me, fraternally, of art I have consumed, they remain independent of each other, enough to act as a tapestry of all the terrible alleyways that open up to women as they attempt to walk the world they were born into.
As the conclusion is set like the stone on which hope is dashed, the bones buried under sand & summer sun, expand the circle of life; feeding tethers to those without a human voice to speak, share, or plead for a reprieve, much like the body that sustains them as they feed.
Thank you to NetGalley, Titan Books, & Ronald Malfi for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
C. 💌