Hot Wax

By: M.L. Rio

Narrated by: Helen Laser

“A brooding, doubled-sized, highway thriller.” —The New York Times

The new novel from the bestselling author of If We Were Villains and Graveyard Shift—a vivid and immersive tale of one woman’s reckless mission to make sense of the events that shattered her childhood and made her who she is.

Summer, 1989: ten-year-old Suzanne is drawn like a magnet to her father’s forbidden world of electric guitars and tricked-out cars. When her mother remarries, she jumps at the chance to tag along on the concert tour that just might be Gil and the Kills’ wild ride to glory. But fame has sharper fangs than anybody realized, and as the band blazes up the charts, internal power struggles set Gil and his group on a collision course destined for a bloody reckoning—one shrouded in mystery and lore for decades to come.

The only witness to a desperate act of violence, Suzanne spends the next twenty-nine years trying to disappear. She trades the music and mayhem of her youth for the quiet of the suburbs and the company of her mild-mannered husband Rob. But when her father’s sudden death resurrects the troubled past she tried so hard to bury, she leaves it all behind and hits the road in search of answers. Hitching her fate and Gil’s beloved car to two vagabonds who call an old Airstream trailer home, she finds everything she thought she’d lost forever: desire, adventure, and the woman she once wanted to be. But Rob refuses to let her go. Determined to bring her back where she belongs, he chases her across the country—and drives her to a desperation all her own.

Drenched in knock-down drag-out rock and roll, Hot Wax is a raucous, breakneck ride to hell and back—where getting lost might be the only way to find yourself and save your soul.

Critic reviews

"Helen Laser gives a satisfying performance of a story that seems like the two sides of a vinyl album. On side A, it's the summer of 1989. Ten-year-old Suzanne joins her rocker father on tour with his band. The tour ends with a shocking event. On the B side, Suzanne is 30 years older, married to Rob, and living a quiet suburban life—until she decides to hit the road to learn what happened to her father all those years ago. Rob, who is angered by her sudden departure, becomes a mounting threat as he pursues her. Laser effectively conveys the nostalgia of the 1980s malls and record stores that make up young Suzanne's world while also capturing the tension of complicated family dynamics."

Raw, unfiltered and drop dead rock 'n' roll

The rawness of the narrator, putting Suzanne's life into perspective as well as the world around her.

felt like I was listening to a friend.

Maybe I'm to into thrillers but this was a slow build. I mean it felt like I was listening to my best friend ramble a story to me. also the changing parts between a side and b side personally I didn't figure out what was going on there until I googled it and it explained it was young Suzanne and old Suzanne. at the end the excitement with deaths and arrests and some drug use was probably the peak of this drab of a book for me.