There are books you read slowly, savoring every page, and then there are books that grab you by the collar and don’t let go. The Death Row Club is firmly the second kind.
This is a debut novel, and it reads like Vazquez arrived fully formed. The premise is one of those ideas so good you wonder why no one thought of it sooner: Nicola Fischer’s father has just been arrested for the murders of five women, including her best friend, with the whole thing playing out on a hit true crime TV show. In an instant, her life collapses. Then she receives an invitation to the Death Row Club, a secret annual retreat for the adult children of serial killers. Desperate for connection with people who might actually understand what she’s living through, she goes.
What unfolds from there is sharp, propulsive, and genuinely unsettling in the best way. The central question lurking beneath every scene is a quietly terrifying one: what does it mean to grow up in the shadow of someone capable of something monstrous? Vazquez doesn’t offer easy answers, and the book is better for it. The twists earn their place, and the pacing never lets up.
I’ll be transparent: this is darker than what I usually reach for. The psychological tension is real and the subject matter is heavy. If you prefer your thrillers on the lighter end of the spectrum, that’s worth knowing going in. But if you love a book that challenges you a little, that makes you sit with uncomfortable questions long after you’ve finished it, this one delivers in a way that’s hard to shake.
It’s the kind of read that I guarantee will have you thinking for weeks.
