Eighty-something year old Maggie returns to the Hotel Karnak on the banks of the Nile to live out the rest of her life, but meets an unlikely eight-year-old Otto who gets in the way of her lifestyle. Maggie is a self-made love arbitrator who decides on the sly to interfere in couples' lives and engineer their break up when she thinks one of the women in the marriage is or will be unhappy.

Otto has witnessed her leaving false trails that led to the break up of a family in the hotel and he decides to play cat and mouse with Maggie throughout the book. He is diabolical in getting back at Maggie when she doesn't give in to his blackmail for video games and items for his mother.

A dark tale of warring minds, both of which get ever more desperate, until they both seem to go off track. It was hard to believe that an eight year old could be so diabolical, but then this is fiction and Maggie is equally wicked. The last page of the book left me wondering if Otto intended such an ending. The Egyption god of disorder, violence, and foreigners in Egypt, Set, who is mentioned in the book, seems to reign over these two opponents.

It was an engrossing read, leaving the reader wondering throughout, what craziness will be the next thing to happen?

What in the ever-loving fudge did I just read?!? I mean, the blurb told me exactly what this book was going to be about so I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I absolutely did not expect it to be so dark. If you're going into this one planning to read about a benignly meddlesome old woman and a mischievous young boy playing harmless pranks on each other, well … it's certainly not that. Which I guess is a good thing, because that sounds like a boring read now that I think about it. Havoc is a lot of things, but boring is not one of them.

Our narrator is Maggie, a nosy octogenarian who has taken it upon herself to “fix” other people's lives, even if they haven't exactly asked for her help. She's already fled one hotel in Europe due to her meddling taking an unexpected turn. She's unlikeable and unreliable and should probably be some sort of retirement home with locks on the outside of the doors. What will happen when Maggie pits herself against someone who's just as awful as she is? And what if that person just happens to be an eight-year-old boy?

It's probably best if you go into this book mostly blind, but I will reiterate that this is a dark (and insane) read. It starts off fairly tame and then goes completely off the rails. You can feel the tension build as you turn the pages. And then the ending is kind of insane but also kind of brilliant and I am not exactly sure how I should feel about any of it.

My overall rating: 4.45 stars, rounded down. If you like twisted and suspenseful tales narrated by awful old women with a whole host of personality disorders, definitely consider giving this one a read. It's a wild ride.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Harper for providing me with an advance copy of this book to review. Its expected publication date is December 3, 2024.