Tell Me What You Did by Carter Wilson: Absorbing suspense

Tell Me What You Did by bestseller Carter Wilson is a thought-provoking psychological suspense thriller with an absorbing narrative. Read my review.

My Review

Tell Me What You Did‘s premise struck me as an interesting twist on society’s current obsession with true crime podcasts. Since I do not share this obsession, what might motivate someone to make themselves a magnet for perpetrators of crime in the way described fascinated me.

… the only time I feel connected is when I’m talking to guilty people. When I feel part of something greater than my own despicable bones. All the other hours of the day, I’m lost inside my own mind, and what a house of mirrors that is.

This was my first experience with Carter Wilson’s assured writing style. In the commercial thriller genre, all too often there appears to be greater focus on plot than prose. So, I was pleasantly surprised by his efficient yet evocative depictions of setting and mood peppered throughout this novel.

I put the phone down and stare out the kitchen window. There’s a light morning fog, and wisps of it cling to neighboring cornstalk carcasses like a parade of ghosts.

The complicated psyche of Wilson’s protagonist, or anti-protagonist, would have been challenging to write. Too dark, and he loses the reader, but a person who has committed murder cannot plausibly be all lightness and sparkles either. That kind of traumatic baggage is going to be weighty…

Dusk weighs like a closing coffin. A mass grave of brittle leaves covers my walkway, and their little bones crunch beneath my sneakers as Bailey and I make our way to the front door.

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For the most part, I think Wilson gets that tricky balance right in Tell Me What You Did. I did not find Poe Webb endearing, but I did find her first-person narrative highly absorbing reading. And, she has some endearing characters and a loyal pet in her orbit, which always helps. That a good portion of this novel is presented in podcast transcript format helped keep the reading pace high also.

For all that I admired in Carter Wilson’s execution of this novel’s unusual premise, beyond that, the mystery plot contained no twists that I had not already suspected. Yes, violent, depraved acts and psychopathic behaviour are discussed, and the welfare of his primary and secondary protagonists are threatened in real-time on more than one occasion. But, these instances were clearly foreshadowed and/or were the likely result of poor decision-making.

So, while certainly not for readers’ faint of heart, Carter Wilson’s Tell Me What You Did is a strong, absorbing psychological suspense thriller rather than a gripping one.

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* My receiving a pre-publication digital copy of Carter Wilson’s novel from the publisher for review purposes did not impact the expression of my honest opinions above.