Ashley Winstead, acclaimed for her psychologically dense thrillers like In My Dreams I Hold a Knife and Midnight is the Darkest Hour, returns with This Book Will Bury Me, a story that dissects modern true-crime obsession with a scalpel-sharp precision. This is no ordinary whodunit. Rather, it’s a raw and evocative meta-narrative told from the depths of personal trauma. In a cultural moment where the amateur detective is just a Reddit thread away from notoriety, Winstead unravels the sinister side of online justice-seeking—where the need to know becomes a need to own the story.
From the first page, the reader is not simply invited, but implicated.
Plot Summary: Solving Murders While Drowning in One
Jane Sharp isn’t your average college senior. After her father’s sudden death, Jane spirals into the rabbit hole of online true-crime forums in search of comfort, control, and purpose. What begins as grief-fueled curiosity quickly turns into obsession when the gruesome “Delphine Massacres”—the triple murder of three college girls in Idaho—gains media attention. With a team of anonymous armchair detectives, Jane dives into the case, eager to uncover the truth faster than the police.
But what they find is a story riddled with contradictions: cagey law enforcement, a media circus more interested in clicks than facts, and clues that multiply instead of resolve. Told one year after the case’s explosive conclusion, Jane narrates the events from a place of painful hindsight. It’s not just about the murders—it’s about the cost of pursuing answers when the line between truth and narrative control blurs.
Winstead breaks the mystery thriller mold by using Jane’s memoir-esque voice to slowly unravel not just the case, but the emotional underpinnings of every character involved.
Character Study: Jane Sharp, A Heroine in the Dark
Jane Sharp is not easy to like, but she’s impossible to ignore. Her voice—both self-deprecating and scathingly honest—is the engine of this novel. She admits to manipulation, to obsession, to abandoning ethics in pursuit of meaning. But underneath her clinical self-awareness lies a vulnerability so human it stings. Her grief, particularly the loss of her father, seeps into every chapter, and Winstead cleverly weaponizes that loss to fuel the narrative’s momentum.
The supporting characters, mainly her fellow sleuths from the Real Crime Network (screen names like “LordGoku” and “GeorgeLightly”), are eerily believable. Each is distinct, complex, and chillingly real, forming a digital Greek chorus echoing both justice and chaos. It’s in these interactions that Winstead shows her mastery: behind every screen name lies a motive, a history, a wound.
Writing Style: Smart, Self-Aware, and Seductively Unreliable
Winstead adapts a striking voice in This Book Will Bury Me—a blend of sardonic wit and intimate grief. The tone flits between investigative objectivity and raw confession, echoing the cadence of true-crime podcasts and viral Reddit AMAs. Sentences are sculpted with psychological weight and cultural commentary, yet remain accessible. Her prose walks a tightrope: richly metaphorical without collapsing into melodrama.
This is a novel unafraid to be both literary and lurid. References to real-life cases (Gabby Petito, University of Idaho) are delicately woven in—not for shock value, but to ground the narrative in the zeitgeist of American voyeurism. Winstead’s approach is journalistic in research and poetic in delivery.
Themes: Truth, Exploitation, and the Violence of Curiosity
At its core, This Book Will Bury Me is not about solving a crime. It’s about why we feel the need to solve it in the first place.
Key Themes Explored:
- The commodification of trauma: How the media, and by extension the reader, feeds off tragedy for entertainment.
- Digital anonymity and identity: In a world of avatars, who owns the truth?
- The addictive power of narrative control: As Jane confesses, “It wasn’t just about justice—it was about being first, being right.”
- Grief as a radicalizing force: Jane’s descent into obsession is portrayed not as madness, but as coping.
Winstead doesn’t shy away from the ethical murk of amateur sleuthing. She shows how empathy can coexist with exploitation, how even the best intentions can corrode.
What Works: The Best of Winstead’s Crime Craft
- A Relentlessly Engaging Premise: Blending fiction with real-world case sensibilities makes this thriller eerily immersive.
- Complex Female Lead: Jane is as flawed as she is fascinating, and her arc is deeply satisfying.
- Fresh Format: Interspersed online forum threads, case notes, and “meta” commentary deepen the realism without overwhelming the reader.
- Social Critique: The novel’s interrogation of the true-crime phenomenon is sharp, timely, and deeply reflective.
What Falls Short: Not Without Its Flaws
Despite its brilliance, the novel isn’t perfect. Here’s where it falters:
- Pacing Stumbles in the Middle
Part Two slows down noticeably. The narrative lingers a little too long in chat transcripts and procedural speculation, threatening to stall momentum. - Moral Grayness Can Frustrate
While Winstead excels at ambiguity, some readers may crave firmer footing—especially in a genre that traditionally rewards clarity and closure. - Supporting Cast Left Underdeveloped
The sleuthing group feels real, but occasionally, members blur into archetypes. A deeper dive into their backstories would have elevated the stakes.
Expertise & Analysis: E-E-A-T Perspective
I can confidently say that This Book Will Bury Me is a standout in the contemporary mystery-thriller genre. With its layered narrative, psychological depth, and cultural insight, Winstead proves herself again as one of the most daring voices in the field.
Her understanding of trauma-informed storytelling, internet culture, and gender politics is not only evident but essential to the book’s impact. Readers familiar with works like The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz or The Quiet Tenant by Clémence Michallon will find familiar terrain here—but Winstead goes further in asking readers to question their own culpability.
This isn’t just entertainment—it’s a reckoning.
Recommended For Fans Of:
- My Favorite Murder (Podcast Fans)
- In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead
- Happiness Falls by Angie Kim
- The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz
- No One Can Know by Kate Alice Marshall
- The Last Housewife by Ashley Winstead
- The Quiet Tenant by Clémence Michallon
Final Verdict: Should You Read This Book Will Bury Me?
Absolutely—if you’re ready to confront the ethics of your own fascination with true crime.
This isn’t a novel you passively consume. It demands something of you. It asks uncomfortable questions. It challenges the moral line between witness and voyeur. And by the final, blood-soaked page, it makes clear: the most dangerous stories aren’t the ones we hear—they’re the ones we tell ourselves.
Wrapping It Up
In a sea of thrillers that chase plot twists, This Book Will Bury Me digs deeper—into grief, morality, and the slippery slope of obsession. With this novel, Ashley Winstead solidifies her place not just as a master of suspense, but as an incisive chronicler of human behavior. The book is dark, daring, and devastatingly smart.
If Midnight is the Darkest Hour and In My Dreams I Hold a Knife were Winstead proving her craft, This Book Will Bury Me is her proof of purpose.