Four Found Dead by Natalie D. Richards
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
In Sandusky, Ohio, the once thriving three-story shopping mall is closed. Only the attached movie theater, Tempest Theaters, is still in operation, or was.
At the start of Four Found Dead, Tempest Theaters has just shown its final movies. It’s the last night of operation before it will join the rest of the mall in closing forever.
Jo and her six colleagues have locked the doors and their final clean-up at the theater has begun. It’s bittersweet, but the friends are looking forward to going out and grabbing pancakes together after they leave.
Unfortunately, an unexpected altercation, involving their super-buff, jerk of a manager, Clayton, ends up putting their pancake plans on hold. They just want to get the heck out of there, but Clayton is spiraling and he’s not letting them out.
They’re literally unable to leave, as Clayton is the only one with the keys to the exit doors. After they finish their tasks, they quietly try to figure out what is going on with him. Maybe he has finally lost it? He seems dangerous.
Oh, also, the icing on the cake, Clayton’s no phones on shift rule, allows him to lock-up all of their phones in the office safe at the start of the night and he isn’t opening it now. Thus, the friends have no means of communicating with anyone outside of the theater.
As the tension and anxiety continues to rise, the power goes out. They are left in almost complete darkness. Then the screams begin.
One dead body in the employee locker room starts it all. It’s clear it wasn’t an accident.
The girl whose blood-curdling shrieks brought the others to the locker room to make the grisly discovery, is barely coherent. They can’t get anything out of her, but they all know who did this…
The remaining coworkers, Jo, Hudson, Quincy, Naomi and Summer, need to find a way to escape. Clayton is lurking in the dark. Their only possible way out just might be through the boarded up, abandoned shopping mall.
I started this book on Sunday morning and finished it Monday. I could not put it down. I considered calling in sick to work, LOL. I haven’t devoured a story like that in a while. It’s such a compulsive read.
I loved the setting of the theater and abandoned mall. It was easy to picture every single scene in my mind. The lack of power, boarded up doors and stores made in particularly eerie. I felt like Richards did a great job portraying that.
Personally, I think this would make a fun movie. I would love to see a Netflix or Hulu adaptation. There’s certainly plenty of abandoned malls around for them to film at…
I also really enjoyed the pace. The tension continued to build throughout as the characters became more and more desperate for escape.
Jo was an interesting main character, as we learned a bit about her past, which included another traumatic and terrifying event that truly shaped who she had become as a person. There was a lot for her to prove to herself in the current circumstance.
The entire drama has a real survive the night feel and while it isn’t mysterious per se, I definitely second-guessed some things and some character motivations.
What this is though, is definitely a high-stakes, action-packed, drama-fueled Thriller. I found it entertaining as heck and am so glad I had the chance to read it already.
Thank you so much to the publisher, Sourcebooks Fire, for providing me with a copy to read and review. This is the exact kind of story I have been craving lately!
