The Bloody Brick Road: A ‘Wizard of Oz’ Retelling

Royer makes her English-language debut with this dark and twisted riff on L. Frank Baum’s classic. In 1994 Montreal, pregnant 19-year-old Dorothy Noroit is on her way to a prenatal yoga class when she gets into a car crash that sends her and five other pregnant women to the hospital. Dorothy’s child, and her relationship, do not survive. Twenty-four years later, a serial killer seems to be at large in Montreal, where three young men are found brutally murdered in quick succession—one missing his testicles, one his brain, and one his heart. The ensuing horror-tinged mystery plot is as inventive as it is grotesque, but as it departs ever more wildly from the original, the Wizard of Oz Easter eggs—including ruby slippers and a neo-Nazi group calling themselves the Winged Monkeys—become more distracting and confusing than exciting. Still, this page-turning thrill ride is strong enough to stand on its own. For readers who relish the heinous, it will scratch that itch. Agent: Rebecca Gradinger, UTA. (Jan.)