Story for the Week
We’ve probably all heard the phrase that karma (or payback) is a bitch—the idea that the universe teaches you a lesson for some “wrongdoing” in your past.
When I was growing up, the joke in our family was that I couldn’t boil water due to an incident with mashed potatoes. As Mom prepared dinner one evening, I asked if I could help. Instant mashed potatoes were on the menu, and if you can read, you can cook, right? So Mom assigned the mashed potatoes to me.
I started boiling the water because that’s what the instructions on the box told me to do. When Mom noticed that only the water was in the pot, she said (and I quote), “Just put the water, the butter, the milk, and everything all in at once.” Take note…she said everything. So I measured out the butter and the milk and the potato flakes, which, of course, ruined the potatoes. She immediately shouted, “Not the potatoes!” I responded that she said “everything.”
Fast forward about 35 years, and Corinne, who was about five at the time, asked if she could help me bake a cake. I measured out the ingredients, and she poured them into the bowl. For the eggs, I let her watch me crack a couple and then let her try on her own. As she tried to gently break an egg open and asked how to put it in the bowl, I said, “Just put it all in.”
When she tossed in the whole egg, shell and all, I shouted, “Not the shell!” Her response? (I think you can see where this is going.) “You said all of it.” Karma.
Corinne recently experienced her own bout with karma. Last week, she started classes at Liverpool Hope University for her semester abroad. We flew out together shortly after Christmas, but first she had to work her final shift at Denny’s prior to leaving. Scheduled for the dinner shift (Christmas Dinner Will Be Lunch This Year), she was still sleeping when her boss texted during breakfast to see if she could come in because they were slammed.
When she woke up an hour later, she called to see if they still needed her, and they told her just to come in at her scheduled time. Unfortunately, the dinner shift was slow this year (it was busy last year), and she started kicking herself for missing her boss’s text. Her co-workers during breakfast and lunch earned about five times the tips she earned by the time dinner rolled around. To top it off, she was battling a cold, a couple of the servers who had already earned a ton in tips wouldn’t leave when it slowed down, and she generally was not having a great last shift.
She kept texting me…complaining…a lot, despite the fact that I encouraged her to just enjoy her last shift before leaving until April.
She got home about 11 that night, we watched some television, I went to bed, and she stayed up cleaning up her room a bit prior to our departure three days later. At about 2 a.m., she woke me up to let me know she had to head to Denny’s early because she had forgotten her wallet when she paid for her food the night before.
When she got to Denny’s in the morning, however, they couldn’t find her wallet. She locked her debit card and came home to look, but she hadn’t stopped anywhere between work and home. We were facing the idea that two days before leaving the country for three and a half months, she had lost her debit card, her driver’s license, her insurance card…all the things it would take more than two days to replace.
She texted her boss and asked if she could get in touch with the two other people who were working when they closed. About an hour later, she received the call that they found her wallet in the office. We were both relieved, to say the least.
It had only been a few hours, but the stress level in the house was pretty high. And then she laughed and asked if God was teaching her a lesson for complaining about not making enough money on Jesus’s birthday. Maybe…because, you know, karma. 😉😂
Book Review
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
5 Stars for Tell Me What You Did by Carter Wilson
435 pages
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Publication Date: January 28, 2025
I received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press.
Publisher’s Description
She gets people to confess their crimes for a living. He knows she’s hiding a terrible secret. It’s time for the truth to come out…
Poe Webb, host of a popular true crime podcast, invites people to anonymously confess crimes they’ve committed to her audience. She can’t guarantee the police won’t come after her “guests,” but her show grants simultaneous anonymity and instant fame—a potent combination that’s proven difficult to resist. After an episode recording, Poe usually erases both criminal and crime from her mind.
But when a strange and oddly familiar man appears on her show, Poe is forced to take a second look. Not only because he claims to be her mother’s murderer from years ago, but because Poe knows something no one else does. Her mother’s murderer is dead.
Poe killed him.
************
Main Characters:
- Poe Webb – 30-year-old true-crime podcaster, no one knows that she witnessed her mother’s murder when she was 13 and eventually killed the man who did it
- Kip Nguyen – Poe’s podcast producer and boyfriend, feels that Poe is keeping something from him but doesn’t know what
- Ian Hindley – man who calls into Poe’s podcast claiming to be her mother’s murderer
- Poe’s dad – 66 years old, hasn’t been the same since his wife’s murder
For me, a great crime thriller reads like several episodes of Criminal Minds. I can picture the BAU profiling the “unsub” (unknown subject) and tracking them down. This book by a new-to-me author would make a fantastic Criminal Minds arc or even a movie. I would totally pay to see something like this in theaters.
Poe Webb lives alone in rural Burlington, Vermont, and airs a pre-recorded true crime podcast where people agree to anonymously confess their crimes. With a pretty substantial following of resourceful fans, her podcasts have led to a number of arrests over the years.
The story is told in alternating formats. It begins as a transcript of the second live stream of Poe’s podcast episodes with Ian Hindley, the man who claims to have killed Poe’s mother 17 years before. On this episode, their roles are reversed. Ian has turned the tables on Poe, asking her questions, forcing a bit of karma on her by making her confess to her own wrongdoings.
Interspersed with the podcast transcripts is Poe’s first-person narration leading up to her initial encounter with Ian and the first podcast with him. Ian insists that the podcast air live, and Poe’s point of view gives us the story all the way up through that first podcast to the start of the second. That’s when the two points of view converge.
No spoilers. I do not intend to give anything away on this.
The book contains only a handful of characters, so we get a good look at the character development for all of them. I can completely understand why Poe is where she is in life based on her back story. She’s somewhat estranged from her father, which makes sense since he never completely recovered from his wife’s murder. Kip believes that Poe is keeping something from him, and we all know what it is, but it sets the tone for the tension in their relationship.
We’ve all read books where we think that the characters could resolve their issues if they would just talk to one another. But Poe would be putting herself at risk by revealing everything that’s happened to her over the last 17 years. I totally buy into her rationale for keeping things to herself.
I found myself making notations pretty early on of what I thought was going to happen, who Ian is and how he knows what he knows, who’s involved in their initial encounter. I guessed wrong multiple times and eventually stopped trying to figure it out and just enjoy the ride.
This one is definitely worth picking up, and I’ll be looking to add some of Wilson’s previous novels into my rotation.
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