What should a reader do when they read an ARC of a brilliant forthcoming novel, one that’s going to blow people’s minds, and you yearn for another read by that author? Glad you asked! In my case, the ARC was American Rapture by CJ Leede (my, sorry, rapturous review here: https://davewritesanddraws.com/2024/07/30/arc-review-american-rapture-by-cj-leede/). Since I’m a sensible fella, I decided it was time to read Leede’s first novel, Maeve Fly. I’m happy to report that American Rapture is no accident, because Maeve Fly is a brutal, no-holds-barred masterpiece.

Maeve, the title character of the novel, is an utterly original creation. By day she works at the happiest place on earth, a barely disguised Disneyland, a place and job she unequivocally loves despite the black heart that beats inside her chest. At night, when she’s not tending to the gravely ill grandmother she lives with, a once famous actress, she prowls the seedier corners of the Sunset Strip, sometimes accompanied by her best friend. She’s found happiness, of a misanthropic sort, even if she sometimes struggles with keeping her darker urges, the wolf that lives inside her, contained. Then her best friend’s brother moves to town, setting off a blood-soaked, murderous chain of events that, once started, accelerates like a runaway train to the very end of the novel.

Maeve Fly is a poisonous love-letter to Los Angeles, a city Leede either loves or hates, possibly both. Once unleashed by circumstances, Maeve moves like an unrepentant Patrick Bateman through LA in an orgy of violence and depravity that’s at once shocking, thrilling, and, at least for me, ultimately cathartic (which might say something about me I’d rather not contemplate, but I digress).

This is bold storytelling, as beautiful as it is terrifying. If you have the stomach for it, if you like your horror uncompromising, this is a must read. I should also mention that, depending on how dark your sense of humor is, it’s often hilarious. I read most of Maeve Fly on a plane, and I found myself snorting out loud with alarming frequency.