-
See Our Best Book
Club Books of 2026!
Summary | Excerpt | Reading Guide | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
Book Reviewed by:The highly anticipated new novel from the author whose debut was called "The smart summer thriller you've been waiting for...The novel you should be reading tonight" (NPR's All Things Considered) and was named a Book of the Year by NPR and an Entertainment Weekly Must-List Pick.
Christopher J. Yates's cult hit Black Chalk introduced that rare writerly talent: a literary writer who could write a plot with the intricacy of a brilliant mental puzzle, and with characters so absorbing that readers are immediately gripped. Yates's new book does not disappoint.
Grist Mill Road is a dark, twisted, and expertly plotted Rashomon-style tale. The year is 1982; the setting, an Edenic hamlet some ninety miles north of New York City. There, among the craggy rock cliffs and glacial ponds of timeworn mountains, three friends - Patrick, Matthew, and Hannah - are bound together by a terrible and seemingly senseless crime. Twenty-six years later, in New York City, living lives their younger selves never could have predicted, the three meet again - with even more devastating results.
PATCH
I remember the gunshots made a wet sort of sound, phssh phssh phssh, and each time he hit her she screamed. Do the math and the whole thing probably went on for as long as ten minutes. I just stood there and watched.
I don't know when I realized I was counting. Eight, nine, ten. For a long time it seemed as if all sensation, everything but my eyesight, had been switched off. But once I realized I was keeping track of the shots—eighteen, nineteen, twenty—it felt like something I could cling to because my sense of balance had been switched off along with everything else. I was standing on the nauseating brink of something I didn't want to fall into, a world beyond comprehension.
Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight.
This wasn't real life, this was a show. And this show wasn't for me, I wasn't even allowed to stay up late enough to watch this sort of show. No, none of it made any sense, a silent movie with Russian subtitles.
And yet I watched.
What ...
Yates knows how to pack a mean punch and he does so delivering plenty of momentum. Right from those memorable opening lines, you will get swept along so smoothly you’ll barely notice the occasional bump...continued
Full Review
(633 words)
(Reviewed by Poornima Apte).
Jason Matthews, author of the bestselling Red Sparrow trilogy
Christopher Yates' Grist Mill Road is a terrific thriller. A horrid childhood crime carried secretly to adulthood, with menace lurking around the corner, and guilt hanging heavy overhead. Alfred Hitchcock would have optioned the plot in the blink of his gimlet eye. A gripping read. Jung Yun, author of Shelter
An intricately crafted novel about adult lives forever changed by closely held childhood secrets. Grist Mill Road is a compulsive read that will unsettle you from its first page and surprise you until its very last. Krysten Ritter, author of Bonfire
Dark, intense, and disturbing, Christopher Yates' Grist Mill Road begins with a shock and keeps the suspense burning page after page. A thriller with imagination to spare. Highly recommended. Tana French, author of the New York Times bestselling In the Woods and The Trespasser
The plot is darkly, intricately layered, full of pitfalls and switchbacks, smart and funny and moving and merciless; the characters are all that and more. This is a powerful exploration of how truth isn't a complete and immutable thing, or a pure force of redemption: it's made up of broken shards that lie buried somewhere in the spaces between people, and when the jagged edges work their way to the surface, they can be devastating.
In Grist Mill Road, readers are treated to a mini lesson in how glaciers can shape landscape. Chatter marks, cobbles, and glacial erratics are all terms we come across in the story. What are they and how does a glacier alter the landscape over the ages?
When a large and heavy object moves very very slowly it has the potential to greatly impact its surroundings. Glaciers alter the landscape in two fundamental ways: they carve out valleys (think fjords) and transport significant volumes of debris including rocks.
Glaciated valleys are created when glaciers pass through large mountains. If you notice sheer mountain cliffsides with very narrow inlets, those are likely carved by glaciers. Fjords in Norway are trough-shaped with steep ...
If you liked Grist Mill Road, try these:
by Nora Murphy
Published 2023
A gripping debut domestic suspense novel, Nora Murphy's thrilling The Favor explores with compassion and depth what can happen when women pushed to the limit take matters into their own hands.
by Julia Phillips
Published 2020
Spellbinding, moving - evoking a fascinating region on the other side of the world - this suspenseful and haunting story announces the debut of a profoundly gifted writer.
The Sister's Curse
by Nicola Solvinic
The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes
by Chanel Cleeton
The Vanishing Place
by Zoë Rankin
 (1).gif)
Harvard is the storehouse of knowledge because the freshmen bring so much in and the graduates take so little out.
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
