The Butcher Game: A Dr. Wren Muller Novel - Alaina Urquhart
Published in 2024 by Zando, New York, NY
352 pages
ISBN: 9781638931249
When it comes to fiction, I have always had a proclivity for thrillers, mysteries, and horror. Sherlock Holmes stories filled the memories of my youth as I avidly devoured tale after tale of the detective’s exploits and power of observation. Like a typical angsty teenager, Edgar Allan Poe’s macabre sensibilities appeal to me greatly. In high school, I obsessively read every book by Ted Dekker that I could get my hands on.
Needless to say, I love a good mystery/thriller novel. As such, when popular podcaster Alaina Urquhart announced her first book, my wife and I were incredibly excited to read it, especially since we are regular listeners of the Morbid podcast. Although it didn’t meet our expectations, it ended on an obvious cliffhanger, promising at least one sequel. I had hoped that the second book in the series would be a drastic improvement as Alaina grew in her abilities as a writer and moved beyond many of the typical pitfalls that plague debut works of fiction. As such, in The Butcher Game, podcaster and author Alaina Urquhart continues the cat-and-mouse game between Detective Wren Muller and serial killer Jeremy Rose, as he wreaks havoc in Western Massachusetts.
Overview:
As the second installment in the Dr. Wren Muller series, The Butcher Game picks up immediately after the conclusion of the previous book, continuing the intense duel between forensic pathologist Dr. Wren Muller and her nemesis, the serial killer Jeremy Rose, also known as the Bayou Butcher. Jeremy has fled north to Massachusetts to escape capture and rebuild his twisted legacy. Finding refuge with his childhood friend Philip, Jeremy’s obsession with Wren drives him to orchestrate new, gruesome murders to lure her into his clutches.
Now on medical leave and grappling with the scarring effects of PTSD, Wren is deeply shaken by her past encounters with Jeremy. Haunted by trauma, she recognizes that facing Jeremy again may be her only path to healing. Despite warning signs, Wren and her colleague, Detective John Leroux, travel to Western Massachusetts to investigate a series of murders that have eerie similarities to the victims of the Bayou Butcher. By doing so, the pair has stepped directly into Jeremy's trap, setting the stakes for a showdown between good and evil. Coming face to face with her nemesis, Wren is willing to sacrifice everything to stop him and end his reign of terror.
Commendations:
There are a few key strengths to The Butcher Game that show areas of improvement over its predecessor. First of all, while there was little character development in The Butcher and the Wren, this sequel provides more backstory and complexity to both Wren and (to a lesser extent) Jeremy. We witness Wren struggling to overcome the lingering effects of her traumatic experiences, often finding comfort in community and her husband, Richard. Her vulnerabilities make her a more relatable and complex protagonist than we saw in the previous book, and Urquhart does well to add these emotional layers that ground the horror in something human. Wren’s internal struggle and evolving resilience form the emotional core of the story.
Following the same format as the first book in the series, this novel is structured around the alternating viewpoints of its two principal characters, Wren and Jeremy, as their storylines slowly begin to intersect. Urquhart’s decision to alternate perspectives between Wren and Jeremy amplifies tension and stages a kind of philosophical duel between the two characters and how they’ve processed their trauma. In their mental interplay, the novel contemplates how trauma reshapes one’s sense of self and how confronting it can become both a reckoning and a reenactment of it.
Additionally, when it comes to the book’s setting, this book shows a marked improvement over its predecessor. In The Butcher and the Wren, Urquhart faltered significantly when it came to accurately describing the landscape and details of life in Louisiana. Fortunately, since Urquhart is from New England and is much more familiar with the area, she can describe the setting with much greater accuracy. The muted palette of the autumn Massachusetts background also adds to the eerie, sinister atmosphere and tone of the novel, which contrasts normalcy with haunting, gruesome violence.
Finally, Urquhart’s background as an autopsy technician lends credibility and authenticity to the forensic scenes. While there are a few inaccuracies, Urquhart does bring a unique forensic perspective by highlighting the particularities of the autopsy proceedings. While these scenes were few and far between, readers who enjoy procedural detail and medical accuracy will likely find this a major highlight.
Critique:
Unfortunately, this second installment also suffers from many of the same issues that plagued the Butcher and the Wren. I had hopes that Alaina’s writing would improve in the wake of her first novel. However, many of the criticisms I offered in my review of The Butcher and the Wren still stand regarding this work, so I will refrain from repeating myself too much.
The writing still relies heavily on telling instead of showing. Urquhart often overexplains characters’ thoughts and emotions, leaving little space for readers to interpret the meaning themselves. The metaphoric language is frequently awkward or unclear, and the prose can be disjointed, with transitions that disrupt the narrative flow. Characters shift locations abruptly, creating confusion. These issues distract from the reading experience and hinder immersion.
Much of this, I must reiterate, is also the fault of the editor. Frankly, this book reads so much like a first draft that was never edited at all. Once again, the number of times that a character “flicks” something will begin to drive you up the wall once you notice it. The grammar is inconsistent throughout the book and spelling mistakes are littered throughout the text. Additionally, certain adjectives and adverbs are used ad nauseam and overly flowery descriptions take up a bulk of the text, as Urquhart often utilizes overwrought metaphors that often do not make sense and detract from the narrative flow of the text.
Excessive exposition and exhaustive descriptions of characters’ feelings slow the narrative, while crucial plot developments are compressed into the final chapters. This imbalance creates pacing issues and weakens the story’s impact. The plotting is needlessly messy, and it feels like a bad filler episode of Dexter more than a standalone work. The formulaic structure and cliffhanger ending do little to justify this sequel’s existence.
Additionally, the dialogue in this book often feels overly forced and contrived. The characters interact in unnatural ways, and many of the interactions are simply not how normal human beings talk to one another. Instead, it often reads like a bad script for a television show that has jumped the shark. Wren has some of the most offensive lines, including biting into a burger and exclaiming, “This burger is my religion,” or walking into a crime scene and saying, “I just wish this house had less murder and more pizza.” While these lines are most likely an attempt to make Wren super quirky and #relatable, they instead read as inauthentic and often inappropriate. Since her editors refuse to push her to improve her writing, Urquhart's prose often reads like juvenile fanfiction rather than a robust, fully realized work of fiction.
In my previous review, I mentioned that one of the weakest parts of the book was the lack of character development. While there were some genuine attempts to add depth to both Wren and Jeremy by delving more into their internal worlds (mostly in the form of dream sequences for Wren), their character development remains remarkably weak. While I’m sure that Urquhart wants Wren to be a badass, she more often comes across as passive, constantly being pulled by Jeremy’s machinations. She remains sarcastic, snarky, and downright rude, often treating others as less intelligent than herself. While she goes through some self-reflection in the beginning, it is almost entirely resolved within a few pages, as she returns to being a hard-nosed detective chasing down Jeremy. Wren is one of the most irritating protagonists in a book series that I’ve read in a long time. Urquhart insists on simply describing how Wren is feeling in flat, inert sentences, rather than letting her develop as a character in relation to those around her.
Likewise, while Jeremy receives some much-needed backstory, it is still relatively simplistic and weak as a motivation to become an evil, inhuman serial killer. Most of Jeremy’s chapters are dedicated to scene after scene of him stalking and (without fail) killing a seemingly endless supply of victims. Along the way, each of Jeremy’s murders predictably plays out like every other murder scene in the series, which becomes dull and repetitive incredibly quickly. I found myself skimming through these murder scenes after the first three played out in the exact same way. It becomes overly cartoonish and ridiculously cliché at times, and Jeremy ultimately becomes a forgettable and unbelievable character throughout the book. There is little psychological depth to Jeremy, which reflects Urquhart’s seeming belief that murderers are utterly inhuman (or, as she repeats many times, both in the book and on the podcast, “pieces of shit”).
Furthermore, one of the most irksome aspects of this book is the consistent misrepresentations of how police departments and investigations actually work. Wren and Leroux are only summoned to Massachusetts by a friend who believes that a victim in Salem has similar characteristics to Jeremy’s victims. While this turns out not to be the case, the pair is drawn to Western Massachusetts by reports of a string of killings that bear resemblance to Jeremy’s modus operandi. They then barge into an active police investigation, mostly getting in the way and making snide remarks about their ineptitude.
During these segments, my wife and I were actively rooting against Wren and Leroux, who, aside from not having any jurisdiction in these cases, actively deride and are condescending to the local investigators. While Urquhart is attempting to highlight the small-town pettiness and lack of accountability from local power brokers that can often obscure justice in cases such as these, her understanding of how these cases proceed is incredibly limited.
For example, it seems perfectly reasonable that the police department in the Berkshires is not going to completely disregard protocol simply because two random people from New Orleans show up insisting that they are following the wrong lead. Urquhart assumes that the reader will immediately sympathize with Wren and Leroux, but I found myself agreeing with the local officers when they tell the pair to get out of the way. Leroux flies off the handle at one point, repeatedly insisting that they are not inserting themselves into the investigation. Yet, this is exactly what is happening, and it’s hard not to agree with the local police that their preconceived notions might blind them to other possibilities. In short, while she may have insight into autopsy procedures, it is clear that Urquhart is way beyond her depth when it comes to this aspect of the criminal justice system and how crimes are investigated.
Furthermore, there were two major issues with Jeremy’s chapters. First, beyond the needlessly repetitive and monotonous structure of every single one of Jeremy’s murders, the violence depicted is incredibly graphic. Urquhart revels in depicting every gruesome detail of the victim’s injuries and their emotional state as they are suffering at Jeremy’s hands. While it may be precise and realistic in one regard, the focus on gore might alienate readers who prefer psychological suspense over explicit brutality. As such, I often found the excessive focus on the suffering of his victims to overshadow the narrative tension or any kind of emotional development. At times, it felt as if violence, rather than furthering the plot, was utilized as a strange kind of spectacle, bordering too close to what could be called “horror porn.” This critique might also extend to our avid consumption of true crime content, which can too easily feed into this tendency to turn real-world violence into yet another commodity.
Additionally, Jeremy’s chapters also suffered from their one-dimensional and frankly strange misogynistic depiction of women. I could understand this at least a little bit if these depictions were purely in Jeremy’s mind. Yet, the vast majority of his victims are often blonde, ditsy women who, drawn in to Jeremy’s conventional good looks, are ensnared in his trap, despite all of the red flags along the way. Urquhart too often plays into lazy stereotypes of the attractive killer luring unassuming, sexually open women to their deaths. She depicts these victims as vapid, dim-witted, ignorant, and invariably horny, falling into the arms of an obvious killer, even when he is over-the-top rude to them. By relying on old, hackneyed tropes, Urquhart unintentionally echoes many conservative notions of women’s agency and toxic masculinity that find a better fit in Reaganite, 1980s slasher films than in 21st-century reality.
Finally, as a religious studies scholar, I must point out one more issue that irked me. Despite one of the new characters being a pastor and religion playing a greater role in this novel, it is clear that Urquhart does not have a strong understanding of Christianity. Her description of the church and its congregation vacillates between evangelical Protestant in some parts and Catholic in others. She also paints Philip as a kind of cult leader, and Wren often makes glib, dismissive comments about the community of believers. Overall, many of the observations about religion were shallow and wholly dismissive, and Urquhart’s commentary comes across more as a try-hard, angsty Reddit atheist rather than providing reasoned, complex commentary on the relationship between religion and violence.
Conclusion:
Overall, The Butcher Game continues the same trajectory set by its predecessor, for better or for worse. I had high hopes that Urquhart could have improved her writing and provided more emotional depth to her characters. Instead, we get more of the same back-and-forth dual perspective that relies on telling the audience what to think and feel rather than showing them through the natural conversations and actions of her characters. If you loved The Butcher and the Wren, then you’ll undoubtedly also enjoy this sequel. If, however, you found the first book in this series to be lacking in depth, characterization, and narrative finesse, then you’ll also likely be disappointed by this entry as well.
While the book ends on yet another cliffhanger, it is difficult to see how the plot could develop in a way that would provide a satisfying ending to this series. This book’s plot is already stretched incredibly thin, and now that Jeremy is in custody, I assume that he and Wren will team up (in the style of The Silence of the Lambs) to take down Philip. Yet, it's difficult to want to continue with this series after two disappointing books.
This is all the more disappointing because I know that Urquhart has so much potential to be a fantastic novelist. She’s a gifted storyteller, and I deeply hope that she can learn from these early mistakes in order to strengthen her writing. Furthermore, I hope she can find a more ruthless editor who can push her to produce higher-quality drafts that are given more time to be workshopped and edited.
I truly believe that Urquhart could become a truly engrossing and prolific horror author. As such, I will likely read the third entry into this series to see how everything is wrapped up, assuming it's only planned to be a trilogy. Here’s to hoping she can finish this series with a bang, rather than with more of the same.