Maia Chance’s “The Body Next Door” is a compulsively readable thriller set on an insular island in the Pacific Northwest, where both rustic cabins and glass-fronted waterfront mansions hold dark secrets, and no one is quite who they seem.
The story urgently unfolds in a rush of first-person narratives by the book’s characters, all of whom are haunted, in different ways, by their involvement with a radical homesteading cult that once occupied the island.
Chance, who has lived quietly on Vashon for the past eight years, churning out bestselling mystery novels, summons up some of the spookiest aspects of island life — secret trails in twisted woods, the churn of dark water left in the wake of late-night ferries, and the combustible social mix of proud, resentful townies and arrogantly entitled summer people.
At first glance, the book’s main protagonist, Hannah, and her self-made millionaire husband, Allan, seem to belong to the latter group — until a dead body is discovered in the woods next to their gleaming second home on Orcas Island.
A police investigation of the grim crime scene subsequently unearths Hannah’s secrets, revealing hard truths about her two adored but troubled children, as well as her not-to-be-trusted rich husband — all spilling out in Chance’s gripping, gotta-read-it-all-in-one day prose.
As Chance’s characters crash, her storytelling soars with authorial prowess that includes depictions of the paranormal that take the book to the next level of chills and thrills.
“The Body Next Door,” said Chance in a phone interview, is a departure from her previous “cozy mystery” novels —and a challenge that began to absorb her life during the quiet of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Finishing the book took longer than any of her previous works, she said.
“It was a big leap for me,” she said, describing the novel’s complexity, timelines, and multiple points of view. “I had to learn a lot to get it done.”
Chance also cited the influence of American Gothic masters Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne in her work, saying that at the same time that she wrote “The Body Next Door,” she was simultaneously finishing a doctoral degree in American literature from the early and mid-19th century.
Her depiction of the story’s central cult, she said, partially came from her experience of growing up in northern Idaho, during the time of the infamous siege of Ruby Ridge in 1992 — an event that is loosely mirrored in the novel’s plot lines about the “back to the land” cult.
Chance said that she had never before written about a cult, but had been inspired to do so not only by Ruby Ridge but also by tales she had heard about the cult-like Wesleyan Community Church, a community that was led by a former Methodist minister on Vashon in the 1970s and 80s.
A big part of the plot of “The Body Next Door” examines the trauma of children who are trapped in cults through no fault of their own, Chance said — and the years of work they face in untangling abuse and trauma and as they reach adulthood.
“The Body Next Door” has already won high praise from a host of other authors.
Darby Kane, the internationally bestselling author of “The Engagement Party,” called the book “a twisty, creepy, and compelling ride through family dysfunction and betrayal.”
And despite its dark subject material, it’s also a ripping yarn, according to Jenna Satterthwaite, author of “Made for You,” who called the book “a … mesmerizing kaleidoscope of voices that will spin you dizzy all the way to its heart-aching conclusion.”
Meet Maia Chance
Join Maia Chance in a discussion about “The Body Next Door” at an author event at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 7, in Vashon Library’s meeting room.
The novel can be pre-ordered at Vashon Bookshop, and limited copies may be available for sale at the Aug. 7 event.
Find out more about Chance and her other published works, which include the Lola Woodby Mysteries, the Fairy Tale Fatale Mysteries, and the Agnes and Effie Mysteries, at maiachance.com.
