Review: 'Little Red Death' by Alexandra (A.K.) Benedict

Sometimes a book wants to do a lot and sometimes that works. Other times, it does not work and while the result does not have to be disastrous, it can be messy. For me, unfortunately, Little Red Death was a case of the latter. Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Pub. Date: 8 September 2026
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press

This is once upon a time, like you've never read it before

For twenty-five years, DI Lyla Rondell has lived with one unsolved case: her best friend's disappearance. The only clue—a poisoned apple—earned it the nickname "Snow White." It's haunted her ever since.  

Now, when a woman is taken in a crime that has striking similarities to the story of Cinderella, Lyla is charged with investigating. And as more murders take place, each one based on a different classic fairytale, Lyla is determined to finally uncover the truth. 

But these deaths are far from the stuff of bedtime stories. And worse, it becomes increasingly clear that these killings, and the messages left within them, are addressed directly to Lyla.  

As the murders get more gruesome, Lyla becomes entangled in a web of crime and storytelling that goes far deeper than she ever could have imagined. Because someone out there is pulling her strings, and to turn the final page on the killings, Lyla will have to take a little creative license of her own. 

Some things go together well, like horrors and thrillers, or horrors and meta-narratives, or thrillers and meta-narratives. Fairy tales also go very well with meta-play and horror. All of this should go well together and I still believe it can, but it doesn't fully in Little Red Death. I think what might have been necessary was to pick a main "mode", so to say, especially when it comes to tone and approach. I was never sure whether this book was an ode to fairy tales, a horror novel, a detective thriller, or a book about storytelling. Again, I think a book can combine all of this, but it needs to know where it is doing what, when which mode or genre or tone has precedence. In Little Red Death it felt like I was given all of my favourite foods but they had been blended and the smoothie was unappetising. In the end this book is a meta-narrative that never gets properly meta, a thriller that never really thrilled me, and a horror that never fully horrified me. I was open to this novel doing whatever it wanted to do, but it never seemed to pick a direction and follow it. Whether this is because it needed a tighter round of developmental edits, because the tone didn't quite land for me, or because the author lost slight control of the scope, I don't know. It ended up being something of a disappointing read in the end.

Little Red Death begins with the kidnapping of Katie, who is a thriller/crime writer. Her captor, who wears a wolf mask, wants her to write him fairy tale-inspired murders, which he will then enact. She decides to play along in the hopes to find a way to escape and to make sure he leaves traces behind for the police. Hot on his trails is DI Lyla Rondell, who begins to connect the dots in the killings perpetrated by the man now known as the Grimm Ripper. It's not just these crimes that have Lyla on edge, however, but also their seeming connection to the disappearance of her childhood friend Alison. That is already a lot to have going on, but for me the book became more intriguing once its meta aspect was revealed and the question becomes what is real and what is being written for everyone to act out. As I wrote above, this is where things got messy for me. It is one thing to write a typical detective figure and then say, "look at what I did here", and another for that to really work. I have to admit that it seems incredibly difficult to me to pull that off properly, but it didn't entirely come together in Little Red Death for me. If I'm questioning what is real then I also do need to really care about these characters, I need to feel that something would be genuinely lost if it turned out to be fake or imagined. I was not that invested, unfortunately.

I have not read anything by Alexandra Benedict before and in a weird way Little Red Death has me both eager and hesitant to try out more. On the one hand I applaud her immensely for doing something so complex and there where moments, scenes, and characters that I did really like. On the other, weightier, hand, though, I felt there was a lack of control. I can appreciate that in part the shifting tone and potential inconsistencies or oddities are to do with the meta-narrative, but I prefer when this is done more consciously. It's been a while since I've written a more negative review when it was disappointment rather than irritation at the root of it all. I really wanted so much of this book to work and while I could expend the mental energy to make it work for me, I wanted the book to do more of that. Everything felt at once too complex and too simple, which in and of itself is an accomplishment. But I do see the intent and planning behind it, so, while Little Red Death did not work for me, I will probably have another go at a book by Benedict when the blurb catches me and feels focused. Also, the ARC I received is technically for the deluxe edition of the book but I didn't see anything special in the e-book itself, so I assume this refers to aspects of the printed book.

I give this novel...

2 Universes!

I wavered quite a bit on this rating and I probably could switch up to 3 if I was feeling generous, but in the end I feel that this novel failed to do what it set out to do, rather than failing my expectations.