Real Easy: a bold, mesmerising and unflinching thriller featuring three unforgettable women

by Marie Rutkoski

'Very possibly the best crime fiction book since Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects' Neel Mukherjee

Three Women meets Tana French in a compulsive, unflinching and unexpectedly hopeful thriller set in a midwestern strip club.

'Gritty, glittery and pulsing with life' Sara Sligar
'Bold, compelling, brutal and brilliant' Chris Whitaker

It's 1999, and Samantha has danced for years at the Lovely Lady strip club.

She's not used to taking anyone under her wing - after all, between her disapproving boyfriend and his daughter, who may as well be her own child, she has enough to worry about. But when Samantha overrides her better judgment to drive a new dancer home, they are run off the road. The police arrive at the scene of the accident - but find only one body.

Georgia, another dancer, is drawn into the investigation as she tries to assist Holly, a detective with a complicated story of her own. As the point of view shifts from police officers and detectives to club patrons, the women circle around a list of suspects, all the while grappling with their own understanding of loss and love.

As they get closer to the truth they must each confront a fundamental question:

How do women live their lives knowing that men can hurt them?

• ISBN10: 1472277481
• ISBN13: 9781472277480
• Publish Date: 18 January 2022 (first published 3 January 2022)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 16 September 2024
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Headline Publishing Group
• Imprint: Tinder Press
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 320
• Language: English

Reviews

[Angie]

Proceed With Caution:

This book contains kidnapping, murder, sexual assault, domestic abuse, racism, drugging, and discussions of dementia and child neglect/death.

The Basics:

Real Easy is set in 1999 in Fremont, Illinois, mostly centered around the Lovely Lady strip club. It has various POVs ranging from the dancers, their kids and partners, the cops, clients, and more. Our main perspectives are two of the dancers, Samantha and Georgia, the two lead detectives, and the murderer.

My Thoughts:

I was immediately interested in Real Easy because I'm obsessed with all things '90s and always get excited to see strippers in novels. Obviously, this meant I had to read it despite Crime Mystery not being my genre of choice.

I'll start with what I didn't enjoy about Real Easy: the writing style. It's very stilted and awkward. There's a distinct lack of contractions which made it feel clunky rather than flowing naturally. It took several chapters to get use to, but I never fully settled into it.

I also wasn't a fan of so many POVs. We have our main five, which were great, but then a whole bunch of one-off chapters. I do prefer multiple POVs but I've never liked one-off narrators. They're usually used to tell us something we wouldn't have known otherwise or to throw us off the culprit's trail. I'm not entirely sure the purpose here, but it was a lot. I did enjoy some of these perspectives, but I kept wanting to get back to our mains!

The plot of Real Easy kept me engaged though. I had to know who took Samantha and why! What is he going to do to her!? Why aren't the cops doing more?! Why do men feel so entitled to women, especially sex workers?! They don't owe you anything, bro! It all started with Samantha offering to drive another dancer home after she was roofied, only to be run off the road. Who was following them?! Why did they kill Jade?! Where is Samantha being held?! Tell me!

Real Easy also has a nice diverse cast. Samantha is intersex. A couple of the girls are Black, some are queer. Georgia in particular is biracial and I totally felt her irritation at ignorant people.

In the end, I enjoyed Real Easy despite it not being my usual type of read. The ending was a bit underwhelming. We learned who it was, and then he was just arrested. I wanted more of a bang!