Hold My Place

Windwalker (Idle Hands) maintains dreamy, ominous suspense throughout this contemporary Hitchcockian horror novel, a cautionary tale of obsession and mortality. Single, 32-year-old Oregon librarian Sigrun doesn’t expect to turn the head of clean-shaven, married chef Edgar Leyward. All the other women in Edgar’s cooking class have their eyes on him as well, and Sigrun doubts her goth aesthetic will appeal. But as Edgar initiates a friendship, Sigrun allows herself to hope. Though Sigrun admires Edgar’s wife, Octavia, when they meet, she’s still eager to get closer to Edgar, and he opens up about the deaths of his first love, Devlin, and his first wife, Brigitte. When Octavia, too, dies suddenly of Covid-19, Edgar proposes to Sigrun, and though she’s concerned about her predecessors’ demises, she agrees. Her fixation on Edgar’s past loves intensifies after she’s presented with a life insurance policy and discovers letters from Devlin hinting that Devlin found a way to cheat death—a fact about which her new husband may know more than he lets on. Though there’s more emotional reflection than action here, the sinister undertones steadily build into a genuine sense of doom, and Windwalker peppers timely observations on the loneliness and disruption of the pandemic throughout. It’s as thought-provoking as it is harrowing. (Jan.)