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Crime by the Book

A girl investigates crime fiction from around the world, by the book.
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One girl's ongoing investigation of the crime fiction genre.

Riley Sager Survive the Night.jpg

Book Review: SURVIVE THE NIGHT by Riley Sager

June 29, 2021

SURVIVE THE NIGHT by Riley Sager

Dutton; 6/29/21

CBTB Rating: 5/5 Stars

The Verdict: My new favorite Sager book! A summer 2021 must-read.

The day is finally here: SURVIVE THE NIGHT, the highly-anticipated new thriller by bestselling author Riley Sager, is available now—and it is entirely worth the wait. In his newest thriller, Sager invites readers into the passenger seat for a car ride you’ll never forget. The year is 1991, and college student Charlie has just accepted a ride from a stranger she met on her campus ride board. Charlie is desperate to leave school and get back home to Ohio, and Josh is heading that way, too. What could possibly go wrong? Not long after the two have departed, Charlie becomes suspicious of her traveling companion… and before the night is over, Charlie will have reason to believe that she is in the car with a serial killer. In SURVIVE THE NIGHT, Riley Sager delivers a gripping, just-one-more-page thriller that begins with a simple premise, and unfurls into one of the most memorable suspense stories of the year. SURVIVE THE NIGHT has all the key ingredients readers expect from a Sager suspense novel: an endearing, independent protagonist, a horror-movie-worthy premise, and a masterful command of plot and pacing that will keep readers glued to the pages. Add in a jaw-dropping, earth-shattering final reveal in the book’s last few pages and you’ve got yourself a surefire winner in SURVIVE THE NIGHT. Sly, immersive, and wildly original, SURVIVE THE NIGHT is Riley Sager’s best book yet. 

Plot Details: 

It’s November 1991. Nirvana's in the tape deck, George H. W. Bush is in the White House, and movie-obsessed college student Charlie Jordan is in a car with a man who might be a serial killer.

Josh Baxter, the man behind the wheel, is a virtual stranger to Charlie. They met at the campus ride board, each looking to share the long drive home to Ohio. Both have good reasons for wanting to get away. For Charlie, it’s guilt and grief over the shocking murder of her best friend, who became the third victim of the man known as the Campus Killer. For Josh, it’s to help care for his sick father—or so he says.

The longer she sits in the passenger seat, the more Charlie notices there’s something suspicious about Josh, from the holes in his story about his father to how he doesn’t want her to see inside the trunk. As they travel an empty, twisty highway in the dead of night, an increasingly anxious Charlie begins to think she’s sharing a car with the Campus Killer. Is Josh truly dangerous? Or is Charlie’s jittery mistrust merely a figment of her movie-fueled imagination?

One thing is certain—Charlie has nowhere to run and no way to call for help. Trapped in a terrifying game of cat and mouse played out on pitch-black roads and in neon-lit parking lots, Charlie knows the only way to win is to survive the night.

Riley Sager_Survive the Night.jpg

Riley Sager has a unique gift for writing stories that begin with relatively simple, familiar premises and twist and morph into wholly original and thoroughly inventive thrillers. Sager has given readers suspense novels centering around final girls, a summer camp with a dark past, an exclusive apartment building with dangerous secrets, a haunted house, and now, in SURVIVE THE NIGHT, he takes readers inside a car ride that might just turn deadly. Think you’ve read this story before Think again. As always, Riley Sager’s imagination and creativity is unparalleled; from the seemingly familiar starting point of a young woman accepting a ride with a stranger, Sager unspools a deliciously unpredictable and truly gripping thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the book’s final page. College student Charlie is desperate to return home to Ohio after suffering a tragic loss: her best friend at college was brutally murdered, the victim of a serial killer known as the “Campus Killer.” Reeling from the grief and trauma of this loss, all Charlie wants to do is go home—and go home fast. When Charlie meets Josh through the campus ride board, he seems like her perfect ticket out. Josh is going home to Ohio, too, and he would be happy to give Charlie a ride. But as the two set off on their road trip, Charlie begins to suspect that she may have unwittingly gotten into the car with a serial killer. Buckle up, because this is going to be a dangerous ride.

Central to a Riley Sager thriller is an endearing protagonist, and if you’ve loved the protagonists of Sager’s previous novels, you will love Charlie Jordan, the leading lady of Sager’s newest offering. Charlie is just as spunky, independent, and self-reliant as Sager’s previous protagonists, and she also has one of the most compelling and triumphant character arcs of any Riley Sager protagonist yet. When readers first meet Charlie, she is in a bad way—and understandably so. Charlie’s best friend has just been murdered, and Charlie is reeling from the trauma of this loss. As a result, Charlie is suffering from hallucinations - or, as she likes to think of them, “movies” that play in her head. Charlie is a film major, and her love of movies new (for the time period!) and old infuses everything she does. Movies provide Charlie with a context and frame of reference for her life, and, as she processes the traumatic events she has just been through, they provide her an escape from reality, too. At intervals throughout SURVIVE THE NIGHT, readers witness the hallucinations that remove Charlie from reality and place her into her own “movie” in her mind. Sager expertly blurs the lines between fact and fiction through Charlie’s hallucinations; readers will find themselves constantly wrong-footed in the best possible way thanks to Sager’s expert movement between what’s real, and what might just be in Charlie’s head. SURVIVE THE NIGHT is as much a thriller as it is an ode to movies, and it is fitting, then, that by the end of the book, Charlie’s personal journey is exemplified by a new-found understanding that she needs to be the leading lady - the final girl, some might say - of her own life. With role models like Laurie Strode and Ellen Ripley to guide her, readers know that Charlie is going to put up one hell of a fight against the villain she suspects she has encountered.

Survive the Night.jpg

SURVIVE THE NIGHT is a magic trick of a thriller: a story with a deceptively simple premise that conceals something much more inventive than readers could ever imagine within its pages. The simplicity of this book’s plot is key to its effectiveness. From the book’s first few pages, readers are placed immediately into the heart of the action, and throughout the book, readers have an intimate, front-row seat to the terrifying chain of events that leads Charlie to believe she is in the car with a killer. It is entirely to Sager’s credit that he manages to craft such an original, unpredictable story from a premise that is as restrictive and claustrophobic as this one. When I first began reading SURVIVE THE NIGHT, I couldn’t help but wonder: how will Riley build enough tension and suspense to sustain the reader’s interest throughout a book that really is primarily centered around a single car ride? Reader, I had absolutely no need to worry, and if that same thought has crossed your mind, neither do you. Between the sly and tense development of both Charlie and Josh’s characters, the book’s breakneck pacing, and a truly jaw-dropping, mind-blowing finale, SURVIVE THE NIGHT is Riley Sager’s most propulsive and gripping book yet. Speaking of that ending: in SURVIVE THE NIGHT, Sager has written what will undoubtedly be my favorite plot twist of 2021. No spoilers, of course, but prepare to have your mind blown by the last few pages of this book; Sager ties SURVIVE THE NIGHT together with a simple-yet-jaw-dropping finale befitting of the story that came before. SURVIVE THE NIGHT is all forward motion; once he gets this story underway, Riley Sager never takes his foot off the gas. 

Riley Sager is the rare author who truly does just get better and better, and SURVIVE THE NIGHT is my new favorite Sager book. This book is thriller-writing perfection: tension that never lets up, characters you’ll be rooting for, and a shocking finale that ties the book together with the kind of flair and ingenuity only Riley Sager could dream up. I could keep raving about this book for many more paragraphs, but I’ll keep this simple: add SURVIVE THE NIGHT to your summer reading list immediately. 

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. All opinions my own. 


Book Details: 

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Dutton (June 29, 2021)

Language ‏ : ‎ English

Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593183169

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593183168

Crime by the Book is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. This in no way affects my opinion of the book(s) included in this post. 

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