Book Review: Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward

I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.

Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward

Mogsy’s Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Genre: Horror, Mystery

Series: Stand Alone

Publisher: Nightfire (August 8, 2023)

Length: 342 pages

Author Information: Twitter

What begins as a seemingly innocent coming-of-age story about an isolated teenager finding friendship quickly morphs into a tense murder mystery where reality blurs with fiction in Looking Glass Sound, an unsettling horror novel by Catriona Ward.

It is 1989 and sixteen-year-old Wilder Harlow has come to the little seaside town of Castine, Maine with his family to spend the summer. Readers learn all these details through Wilder’s unpublished memoir, describing how his parents had just inherited the cottage of his late Uncle Vernon and are possibly looking to sell the property. Left to his own devices to explore the town, Wilder befriends Nat, the son of a local fisherman, as well as Harper, a British girl on vacation with her parents.

The three of them become inseparable, bonding over smuggled booze and stories about the Dagger Man, Castine’s own serial killer who has been known to leave behind creepy polaroids of sleeping children as his calling card. Then on one fateful day, a chance discovery leads to the shattering of that friendship. Left adrift and alone once more, Wilder returns home and enrolls in college, still traumatized by what he and his former friends experienced that summer, an event which has made headlines across the country. Suffering from hallucinations and anxiety attacks, Wilder only makes it through his studies thanks to his friend and roommate Sky who offers him emotional support.

An aspiring writer, Sky appeared well-intentioned at first, genuinely seeming to care about Wilder. However, that friendship ultimately implodes as well when Sky ends up making off with Wilder’s work-in-progress memoir to create his own bestselling thriller based on the story of the Dagger Man.

Now you might be thinking, wait, didn’t this book start off being his memoir? The plot thickens as it starts to get metafictional and a bit confusing. For readers who have thus far enjoyed the mystery and intrigue of the novel’s first half, it might even feel a bit like a bait-and-switch. But if you’re at all familiar with the author’s work, you’ll know that surprises are par for the course when it comes to her books. Looking Glass Sound is no exception, replete with a multitude of narrative layers that play with time jumps and POV switching.

Personally, I was much more invested in the story in the beginning when the focus was on Wilder and his two new friends. It’s the 80’s, the dog days of summer, and three teens are coming of age in a New England town—there’s just something so nostalgic, almost Stephen Kingesque about this whole setup. But when we get to Wilder in college, I was admittedly less enamored of the meta narrative. It was here that I felt Ward losing control of the plot, especially when we started branching into other character POVs. Still, she managed to pull it together in the end for a satisfying conclusion.

Speaking of which, be prepared for the ending of Looking Glass Sound to make you question everything you’ve read. At first, not all of it will make sense, but the answers will eventually fall into place. You might even be driven to reread the book just to see the clues you’ve missed. Yes, it’s definitely that kind of book. Granted, it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but then, that level of complexity and artistry is also something to be admired.

And let’s face it, for better or worse, one of the perks of picking up a Cat Ward book is that you never know what you’ll get. The only thing certain is that it’ll be extraordinary.