Real Easy

A Novel

By: Marie Rutkoski

Narrated by: Eva Kaminsky

Includes a bonus conversation between the author and narrator.

A compulsive, tenacious, and unexpectedly hopeful thriller set in a Midwestern strip club, told by New York Times best-selling author Marie Rutkoski in the spirit of Gillian Flynn and Tana French

It’s 1999, and Samantha has danced for years at the Lovely Lady strip club. She’s not used to taking anyone under her wing - after all, between her disapproving boyfriend and his daughter, who may as well be her own child, she has enough to worry about. But when Samantha overrides her better judgment to drive a new dancer home, they are run off the road. The police arrive at the scene of the accident - but find only one body.

Georgia, another dancer, is drawn into the investigation as she tries to assist Holly, a Harvard-educated detective with a complicated story of her own. As the point of view shifts from police officers and detectives to club patrons and children, the women round up a list of suspects, all the while grappling with their own understandings of loss and love.

Drawing on her personal experiences as well as interviews with police, Rutkoski immerses us in a subculture that is all too often reduced to cliché. Gripping, deeply feminist, and character-driven, Real Easy spellbinds us and gets to the heart of this timeless question: How do women live out their lives knowing that men can hurt them?

A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company.

©2022 Marie Rutkoski (P)2022 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

People’s Book of the Week

Featured in The Sunday Times’s “Best Crime Books of 2022 So Far”

The Times’s “The Best New Thrillers for January 2022”

CrimeReads’s “The Most Anticipated Crime Fiction of 2022”

Glamour (UK)’s “Top 30 books that everyone will be reading in 2022”

PopSugar’s “35 Must-Read Thrillers and Mystery Books to Keep You Chasing Clues in 2022”

Book Marks’s “The Best Reviewed Books of the Week,” 1/21/22

SheerLuxe’s “8 New Books To Read This Month”

BiblioLifestyle’s Winter Reading Guide 2022

“Kaminsky’s compelling narration never lost me. I kept my ears peeled until the gripping denouement.” —Vulture, on the audiobook

“[A] thoughtful, character-driven mystery…[Real Easy] inverts standard crime tropes and reminds readers that stripping is work, and that women deserve to move through that work without the constant threat of violence and death.” —Sarah Weinman, The New York Times Book Review

“[Rutkoski] writes vividly…This is a serial killer novel with a difference, avoiding sensationalism and focusing on the vulnerability of the victims.” —The Sunday Times

amazing

great book, well written and well spoken. lots of twists and turns. kept me at the edge of my seat.

Didn't want to end.

Was such a great book. Never seen that coming kinda book. Hope there are more book to come from this author. Listened to it in one day just couldn't put it down. Narrator did a really good job and that does alot for this book, there are alot of characters

Story is captivating. narration is horrible

I enjoyed the book but it was hard to listen to with the annoying stiletto narration.

Really enjoyed!

There are a lot of novels out there in this genre, and many of them are far too much alike. This has a pretty unique storyline, and it’s so interesting how she took it from her personal experience.
The only thing is it sounded like a very noticeable, audible breath being taken in between each sentence, and that got annoying.

Someone please rewrite this story.

So much potential! Wish this had finished as strong as it started. Wish there was a 5 star stripper + serial killer thriller out there to read next.

Good

Good, then bad, then good. Plays and twists. Narrator was very good!
Over all good story.

unexpectedly good

Enjoyed this mystery written by a former stripper who loosely based this book on events that occured when she a 22 dancer. She writes well and the characters are well developed esp for a mystery

Enjoyed from start to finish.

Really enjoyed, kept me on my toes til the end and I’m usually really good about figuring it out.

Waste of a credit

Is there a main character in this book or just a bunch of minor characters? I really did not care for any of them except the one she had killed half way through.
Is there a main theme other than what it is like to be a stripper? Yes, there was a murder but it seemed secondary to the description of all these minor characters.
I am quitting with 4 more hours to go. Too late to return. I should have given up earlier but I thought it would get better instead of worse.
I know a book is bad when I find anything else to listen to in the car except my latest audio book.

A grueling read

I wish Rutkoski’s editor had done a better job of editing. The book includes numerous unimportant details about a variety of characters, and used too many words to do it. There is no momentum building to a conclusion and there were no heroes.