“What part of your life are you in right now?”

Have you ever finished a book and thought “Wow, that was brilliant but what the fuck have I just read?” Well that’s how I felt after finishing Senseless by Ronald Malfi. 

Senseless reads very much like a thriller throughout. There’s a detective who’s investigating the gruesome murder of a young woman, a murder which echoes a case he worked on a year previously. Then there’s a woman engaged to a Hollywood producer with a very creepy son. Finally we have a young man who thinks he’s a fly and begins to have an obsession with a woman with rattlesnake teeth. How do these three narratives converge? Step inside this book and let Malfi lead you through a darkly twisted and bizarre tale to find out. 

The book is structured into four parts with each part building up a detailed picture of three separate lives—Detective Bill Renney, Maureen Park and Toby Kampen. Through these characters we are presented with the rich, high life of L.A. of mansions, parties and fine dining but we also take a glimpse into the impoverished, seedy underground club-scene of downtown L.A. and Malfi shows us the criminal side of both. If there’s one thing I have learned after reading a few of Malfi’s novels it’s to be suspicious of every character and so this time around I was actively looking for odd behaviours. The problem was that their actions became really hard to decipher because all of them had their obvious secrets and their quirks. 

Detective Renney was clearly still dealing with the death of his wife, Linda, and still drinking every evening, therefore I questioned how much of his POV and his investigation could be reliable? With Maureen, we’re presented with a novelist who is engaged to a man with wealth and connections in Hollywood. Her latest novel had a supernatural twist and so with that I couldn’t resist wondering if her POV also had an element of the supernatural. Then there’s Toby, who never fitted in with others, who believed he was a fly and his mother a spider, who wanted to be anything other than human. Toby was immediately an odd but interesting character, one who could never work out what was fantasy and what was reality, and therefore neither could I. 

As we shifted between these three POV’s, at first I had absolutely no idea how they could be connected in the slightest. Yet slowly, meticulously, Malfi threw in lines that were complete mindfucks and had me questioning everything I’d previously read! Then there was the chapter that perhaps is the most bizarre, unhinged scene I’ve read in a long time. I don’t even know where it came from, it came so suddenly, but wow, that’s a scene I’ll never forget. I think the last book I read which had me contemplating everything that was happening was The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward, which I absolutely loved. I love when an author sends me spiralling into several theories and I’m so pleased Malfi delivered on that score, even if a lot of my theories were wrong. 

“Do you see me?

If I wore your body and looked out of your eyes, how would I perceive myself?

Maybe you see me for the thing I am, the thing I’m becoming. What do you think? What do I look like to you?”

Senseless in a word is a pure mindfuck, that will have you questioning every sentence you read. There’s murder, hints of supernatural, unhinged characters and a touching reflection on grief and mental health. I believe it is absolutely ripe for adaptation and hope someday to see it made into a series or film.

ARC provided by Bahar at Titan Books in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for the copy! All quotes used are taken from an early ARC and are subject to change upon publication.

Senseless will be released 15th April 2025 but you can pre-order HERE