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Ashley Kalagian Blunt is leading the charge into “tech noir” – dark psychological thrillers about how technology infiltrates and impacts our lives. Her latest is Like, Follow, Die, and my friends at Ultimo Press were kind enough to send me a copy for review.
Before the story begins, Kalagian Blunt includes an Author’s Note: “While the characters and their precise circumstances are fictitious, the crimes described in this book are drawn from real events. The attitudes that drive these crimes are also real. And they’re everywhere. Still.”
That’s what makes Like, Follow, Die such a scary read.
The story starts in 2025, with Corinne as “the most hated woman in Australia”. A brand new homicide detective with a lot to prove has shown up on her doorstep and asked her to tell him her side of the story. She reluctantly agrees.
Her story unfolds alongside that of her son Ben, a young man whose diaries have been entered into police evidence. The entries trace his descent into misogynistic extremism, a conflation of life circumstances that leads him to believe feminism is the cause of all his problems – and eventually, he is driven to act, with devastating consequences.
Like, Follow, Die is a contemporary take on We Need To Talk About Kevin. Kalagian Blunt says that she was inspired by Sue Klebold’s memoir, A Mother’s Reckoning, about her son’s role in the Columbine massacre. It’s occasionally heavy handed, and not always 100% realistic in terms of police procedure, but it’s still enough to strike fear in the heart of anyone who has ever seen an angry young man venting his spleen on social media.
An important note (and mild spoiler, I guess) for fellow dog-lovers: there are a couple of very sad scenes about dogs in Like, Follow, Die, but none of the dogs are physically harmed.
Read my review of Ashley Kalagian Blunt’s previous novel, Cold Truth, here.
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