The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James

Narrated by Kirsten Potter and Brittany Pressley

Nobody does the gothic/spooky suspense chiller quite like Simone St. James, and although I’ve missed her last couple of releases, I made a point of picking up The Sun Down Motel, which follows two different timelines as two different women find themselves caught up in the search for the truth about the events which took place in and around a creepy motel in Fell, New York, in the early 1980s.

It’s 1982, and after a fight with her mother, Viviane Delaney – Viv – leaves her Illinois home and heads for New York City, but an uncomfortable hitch-hiking experience sees her ending up in the small upstate town of Fell. Entering the foyer of the motel she’d seen from the road, Viv encounters the owner, who is complaining that her night clerk has just quit – and then makes Viv an offer; she can stay there for free if she’ll cover the overnight shift. With nowhere else to go, Viv agrees – and ends up staying in Fell and working the late shift at the Sun Down for more than just a single night. Being practically alone in such an out of the way place during the night would be enough to spook anyone, but it’s not long before Viv starts to realise that maybe her feelings of unease may be down to something more. Doors upstairs randomly opening and closing, the smell of cigarette smoke in the office for no reason, phone calls with no-one at the other end – and then visions of a young woman and a little boy – all convince Viv that the hotel must be haunted, but just as unnerving are some of the live guests who pass through, from the smarmy travelling salesman who signs the guest register with different names to low-level drug dealers, the couple having an affair and the woman who comes there to drink herself stupid a few times a week. When Viv learns of the recent murders of three – which becomes four – young women from Fell – including one whose body was found as the foundations of the motel were being laid – she realises she may have stumbled across an important – so far overlooked – clue in the search for the murderer. When she takes her suspicions to the local police, she’s told they need more than her suspicions and circumstantial evidence to go on, so Viv sets about trying to find the necessary proof – and then disappears.

In 2017, Carly Kirk is grieving the death of her mother from cancer, and decides to see what she can find out about her mother’s older sister – Carly’s aunt Viv – who disappeared without trace suddenly in November 1982. All she really knows is that Viv had been working as a night clerk at a seedy, run down motel in upstate New York, so she travels to Fell and to the Sun Down Motel, and finds the place barely changed in appearance over the decades – and once again in need of a night clerk. Thinking that might be the best way of helping her to find out the truth of what happened to her aunt, Carly takes the job and then goes to look up Viv’s old address in the hopes of maybe finding her old roommate still there. It’s a long shot that doesn’t pan out, although instead, Carly finds a friend in the apartment’s current occupant Heather, a student and mystery aficionado of about Carly’s own age, who is keen to help her to solve the mystery of Viv’s disappearance.

From the outset, the story is told from both Viv’s and Carly’s points of view in (mostly) alternating chapters, and the author very cleverly draws both threads gradually together as Carly finds out that Viv was investigating the murders of four young women and quickly becomes every bit as invested in uncovering the identity of the killer as Viv was. Along the way, she meets a couple of women who knew Viv briefly – former night beat cop Alma who was, in 1982, Fell’s only female police officer, and photographer Marnie, who had been hired to take shots of the adulterous couple – neither of whom are entirely forthcoming. And then there’s the creepy motel itself and the atmosphere of foreboding and dread that hang over it, the musty smell of years of neglect, the grubby carpets and too-thin curtains… and the inexplicable noises of doors opening and closing, the strange phone calls, the smell of cigarettes and the vision – or ghost? – of the woman in the flowery dress telling Carly to run.

Simone St. James serves up an eerie and unsettling mystery and very skilfully juxtaposes the supernatural threat with the real and present danger to both Viv and Carly. The dual timeline narrative is handled flawlessly as the womens’ stories start to mirror each other, and I was particularly struck by the way the author highlights the vulnerability of women going about their daily lives – working at night, walking home alone, cycling to school, jogging – and also of the sexism and racism to which Alma was subjected, which has a massive impact on the 1982 portion of the story. The characterisation is excellent and Viv and Carly shine, both of them intelligent, resourceful and courageous, even if they make the odd questionable decision, and their narrative voices are very distinct. The advantage of audio is that it’s possible to use two different voices, but even though I haven’t read the print version, I suspect that distinction is clear on the page.

Kirsten Potter and Brittany Pressley read from Viv’s and Carly’s points of view respectively, and deliver a pair of expressive, perfectly timed performances that really drew me into the story. Ms. Potter’s rich, contralto tones are nicely contrasted with Ms. Pressley’s slightly higher-pitch so there’s never any problem identifying which portion of the narrative one is listening to; their interpretations of Viv and Carly perfectly convey the courage and determination of the characters, and both narrators portray the supporting cast appropriately and differentiate clearly between them. Ms. Pressley also does a good job with the characters that “cross over” from the 1980s timeline, matching her portrayals to Ms. Potter’s so they sound reasonably similar. The majority of the supporting roles are female, but both narrators are adept at voicing male characters; Ms. Potter’s portrayal of the villain is particularly disquieting and Ms. Pressley draws subtle contrasts between the two young men in the 2017 portion of the story, keeping listeners guessing – as Carly is at first – as to which of them to trust.

I did have a couple of issues with the story; namely that the ending was a little rushed, and the 2017 villain was poorly developed, but otherwise, I’m giving this one a strong recommendation. The Sun Down Motel is a well-crafted mystery with just the right amount of creepy to have made me want to listen with the lights on.

Caz