Havoc was a wild ride—twisty, dark, and completely unhinged. The setting and character descriptions were vivid, pulling me into a world where nothing felt stable. I was constantly questioning who to trust, never sure whether I liked or despised the characters. Just when I thought I had a grip on the story, the ending hit—abrupt but undeniably clever. While I wish it had lingered a bit longer, the final twist made it worth the chaos. If you love books that keep you guessing, this one delivers.

A wicked and absolutely delightful psychological thriller about an elderly woman on vacation at an Egyptian hotel during COVID. This a slow burning, dark character study. I found it both captivating and entertaining. Readers will not see the ending coming. For fans of the Silent Patient.

Bollen never lets me down. His ability to combine an original, clever and suspenseful plot with a beautiful, evocative travelogue of some far-flung locate is singular and always appreciated. His new one is particularly fun--a romp with great characters that are both outrageous and believable.

Maggie is an 81 year-old widow who is a guest at the Royal Karnak Hotel in Egypt for an extended stay. The restrictions around COVID are pretty loose in that country, and she had to leave her last hotel in Switzerland quickly and under mysterious circumstances. Maggie is also a busy body. She inserts herself into the lives of the other guests and employees of the hotel, whether invited or not.

Mostly, there is good natured meddling. Making up stories with her fellow guests about new arrivals, checking in on some of the employees, that sort of thing. But when she sees what seems to be a troubled-looking mother and son and learns that the father is away, making a film in another country, she assumes the worst and decides to help these new guests leave their old lives behind. The boy, Otto, has different ideas and soon there is a clash that creates shockwaves throughout the hotel.

This story invites a lot of questions that don't really get answered, and that's probably the idea. I really didn't know who was a "good guy" and who wasn't...maybe there doesn't always have to be a "good guy?" All I know is neither Maggie nor Otto would be invited to my dinner party.

My thanks to NetGalley and Harper for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Christopher Bollen
reviewed by Lou Jacobs


readersremains.com | Goodreads


Rejoice, fans of HBO’s popular White Lotus series! Christopher Bollen delivers a wickedly delightful literary equivalent with The Lost Palace, set in the posh but faded grandeur of the Royal Karnak Palace Hotel. Basking in the Saharan sun and nestled alongside the Nile in Luxor, Egypt, the hotel lies within spitting distance of ancient antiquities.

Like White Lotus, this novel explores the interactions between guests and employees, all shaped by their psychological dysfunctions.

Maggie Burkhardt, 81, left Milwaukee to live in Europe’s fine old hotels after the deaths of her beloved husband and daughter. She’s stayed in eighteen European hotels but mysteriously fled her last stop in Switzerland in the middle of the night, leaving behind a cloud of suspicion about her possible involvement in a guest’s murder. Everyone assumes Maggie is a sweet, kindly widow enjoying her final years. But Maggie is anything but. An unreliable narrator, she insists her purpose in life is “to change people’s lives for the better.” In reality, she has no qualms about inserting herself into others’ lives, especially when she believes they’re on the wrong path.

Set during the waning days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the novel is steeped in an all-pervasive sense of isolation and paranoia. Maggie often mentions her reliance on “risperidones” (a popular antipsychotic medication for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder), debating whether to take one—or double up. As events unfold, Maggie’s true nature and motivations become increasingly clear.

Maggie’s life takes a sharp turn when new mother Tess Seeger and her eight-year-old son, Otto, check into the hotel without a husband in tow. Ever the busybody, Maggie begins snooping into their lives, hoping to uncover and fix perceived dysfunctions. But her meddling sets off a dangerous chain of events. Otto, far from an innocent child, proves to be a cunning and worthy adversary. Blackmail and the destruction of personal belongings are just a few tools in his arsenal. A twisted game of cat and mouse ensues, with escalating stakes and Otto often a step ahead in their battle of wits.

Christopher Bollen masterfully weaves multiple intersecting plotlines, escalating intrigue and tension with precise prose and compelling characterizations. The narrative builds to an explosive denouement filled with violence and revelations, all shrouded in dread and mental instability. Themes of grief, the inevitability of aging, and varying degrees of psychosis are explored with nuance and depth.

This addictive page-turner is a must-read for aficionados of psychological thrillers. I eagerly await Bollen’s next work.

I ended up listening to this book, and I absolutely loved it! I loved the setting of this book, a once grand hotel in Egypt. It is also set during the pandemic, so there are only a handful of guests, and they are kind of trapped there.
At first, Maggie Burkhardt seems like a kind of meddlesome old lady. She describes how she has helped people around her, but the stories seem like maybe she just has a habit of interfering. However, quickly you get the sense that perhaps there is something more nefarious behind her stories.
The book really gets interesting when you young boy and his mother arrive at the hotel. Maggie seems to meet her match in this 8 year old boy named Otto. From there, the plot begins to take some twists and turns I never could have seen coming.
I really enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to recommending it!

Ah the eternal dilemma of what to do with the review for a book that is very, very good, but that icked you out too much to say you actually liked it.

All the credit to Bollen for this well crafted and very original story. It’s funny and sly and smart, and it makes you think in ways that aren’t entirely comfortable. Or at least that’s how the first part of the book works.

Later in the narrative, it becomes apparent that there’s something to the protagonist’s backstory that both explains why she is the way she is very well but also is going to make you, the reader, a lot less likely to feel like you’re having a fun time moving through her story. Without including spoilers I’ll just say that while her past does make an excellent explanation for how she behaves, it’s also the kind of backstory that gives me the icks and that I wish we saw less of in crime fiction. I also could have done without the multiple animal deaths.

But I’m incredibly impressed by how well structured this book was, and the way the plot is woven and the way it unravels in the end. An exceptional character study, a darkly humorous adventure, an exceptionally observant take on the concept of the bad seed, and perhaps most notably, an impressively intricate portrait of the descent into madness.

Maggie Burkhardt is finally on holiday. She and her husband never really traveled and, now that he has passed on, there’s nothing to hold her in Wisconsin anymore. She’s taken their carefully saved retirement and lit out for the territories. In her case, the territory is Luxor, Egypt, and the Grand Karnak Palace Hotel. Maggie can while away the days at the pool, eating the cook’s special pistachio cookies, and having the staff take care of her. It’s perfect…until the arrival of a particularly annoying little boy starts to drive Maggie insane. Havoc, by Christopher Bollen, charts a harrowing contest of wills between the two.

Maggie’s new life at the Grand Karnak Palace Hotel is a simple one. Up early to make sure she’s the first person to breakfast and then enjoy the surrounding country before it gets too hot. (The Valley of the Kings is nearby.) Then lunch by the pool with her new best friends, a married couple from the US. Later, Maggie rings a bell to summon guests and staff to watch the spectacular sunset. Every now and then, Maggie decides to “help” someone out by causing a little chaos—nothing too much, just a little nudge to push someone to break up with a cheating partner. Maggie very much loves helping people find a happier path through life, whether they like it or not. The only thing that could spoil Maggie’s retirement is the arrival of Otto Seeber.

Otto and Maggie are on to each other from their first meeting. Both of them see too much and, it turns out, both of them look for opportunities to nudge people around. Maggie sees herself as a guardian angel. Otto, on the other hand, is clearly a monster (according to Maggie). Their ages are great camouflage for their underhanded deeds; who would suspect an old lady of framing a cheater or a young boy of lying about being slapped for no reason, after all? But since they can spot each other from a mile away and resent the hell out of anyone else being manipulative on their patch, their antipathy ramps up shockingly fast.

I was surprised at how viciously Maggie and Otto spar with each other. Havoc turned out to be a shockingly dark book. At first, I thought Havoc was going to be a humorous fight between the two of them but the gloves do not stay on very long at all. Readers who like villains tearing each other down will enjoy this book a lot. Readers who prefer their battles of wills on the farcical side might want to brace themselves.

I loved it! I went into it thinking that Maggie and the young boy, Otto would be friends, an unlikely duo... But alas, I was wrong. Very wrong. Maggie lives at the beautiful old hotel in Luxor, Egypt. It seems she has been there for some time and that she's on the run from yet another hotel in Switzerland. Is she a trouble maker or just meddlesome in other people's affairs? As the story plays out we get to know Maggie, widowed, childless and adrift she floats from country to country enjoying her golden years and occasionally breaking up marriages where she thinks the woman has been wronged in someway by her possibly philandering spouse. I found myself yelling at the book while I read, telling Maggie to mind her own business or to speak up when she silently allowed the innocent to take the blame for things she had done. Don't get me wrong, I liked her and I did not like Otto, he seemed evil to me in a way that is really scary because he was able to hide it so well. This 'Cat and Mouse' psychological thriller kept me reading until way past my bedtime. Loved all the twists and turns.

Three stars for this dark story….though I do love bad children. Give me a kid who kills and I’m a happy reader.

Maggie Burkhardt is eighty-one, a widow and she’s come to the Royal Karnak Hotel on the banks of the Nile to escape a sticky situation at her last hotel.

One morning she notices a sad looking woman named Tess and her eight year old son Otto at check in. Maggie invites them into her life. Big, big mistake. Because in Otto Maggie may have met her malevolent match.

Interesting little tale. The ending was a bit odd and I don’t know that I loved it. Worth an afternoon.

This book stands apart from the rest of these books as a page-turning psychological suspense novel–but wow is it good. This is a dark, disturbing, “what did I just read” kind of book that brilliantly flips the lovable curmudgeon trope around with a jolt and a shock. The novel follows Maggie, an octogenarian posted up at a decaying old-world luxury hotel in Egypt after abandoning a similar setup in Switzerland for unknown reasons. She is a meddler, but only because she believes everyone deserves the type of love and happiness she had with her late husband. When a single mother and her eight-year-old son arrive at the hotel, Maggie can’t help but get involved and he just may turn out to be a kindred spirit or worthy foe. Please do not let this premise fool you and hear me when I tell you that Havoc is unsettling and deranged, but also unputdownable.

Maggie Burkhardt finds solace amid the pandemic at the Royal Karnak Palace Hotel in Egypt. She spends her days reminiscing about her deceased husband and her daughter that also died much too young leaving Maggie alone in the world. Since their passing she has traveled throughout Europe. Before making her way to Egypt she was in Sweden where a tragedy sent her fleeing in the night to her new found safe place.

Once she's settled in this meddlesome octogenarian has finally met her match with the arrival of new guests, Tessa, and her 8 year old son, Otto.

Otto, with his mismatched eyes, seems to see who Maggie really is which will set these two down a path of destruction.

This book definitely had it's ups and downs. There were parts that really drew my interest and other parts that I skimmed in boredom. Maggie was quite the character and she will have you cringing throughout the entire book. The latter half of the book does ramp up in both suspense and darkness and the ending was delightfully twisted which made this a worthwhile reading experience for me. 4 stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper for my complimentary copy.

Intensely clever, full of twists and turns I literally never saw coming. I listened to half of this on audio and read the second half (both copies provided by Netgalley and the publisher, thank you by the way!). The narration is BRILLIANT. I am actually going to go back and listen to the ending so that I can hear the narrator get to the climax of the book. So many questions left unanswered, but so satisfying. A+ and extra points for making me think there was an error in the narrative when really it was part of the twist.

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.