RIP Sprinkles
The Hive (2021) by Gregg Olsen: 8 out of 10 The Hive by Gregg Olsen isn’t your typical murder mystery, and thank goodness for that. What we’re given is something far more unsettling and interesting. The Hive is a story where true crime collides with toxic female empowerment, bee metaphors buzz ominously in the background, and secrets drip like honey…slow, sticky, and with the sting of a wasp hiding inside.
Set in a sleepy Pacific Northwest town known for its serial killers (Bellingham), the novel unspools its narrative through a moody fog of small-town secrets, unsolved murders, and a group of women who may, or may not, have taken the whole “girl power” thing to its natural, slightly murderous conclusion.
At the center of this pollen-drenched morality tale is Detective Lindsay Jackman, a cop carrying just enough baggage to qualify for an emotional carry-on, who finds herself investigating the death of cub reporter outside of Bellingham while recovering from the suicide of her police partner/mentor.
This leads to another murder twenty years earlier that the cub reporter was investigating. A murder that involved Marnie, who was a self-styled queen bee of a feminist collective known simply as The Hive. Her commune was a mix of spiritual empowerment, sketchy self-help ideologies, and low-level cultish vibes that might’ve flown under the radar if dead bodies hadn’t started appearing in its wake. As Lindsay digs deeper, she finds herself ensnared in a web of half-truths and perfectly curated female friendships falling apart.
Thematically, The Hive dances between satire and psychological suspense, offering a critique of influencer culture, faux-spirituality, and the commodification of feminism while still delivering the thrills you’d expect from a murder mystery. It’s a slow burn, yes, but one with a satisfying level of unease, like watching someone smile while holding a loaded gun behind their back. Olsen crafts a world where appearances matter far too much, truth is a malleable concept, and sisterhood might just be the deadliest game in town. Fans of Gillian Flynn’s work such as Gone Girl or anyone who’s ever side-eyed a wellness retreat brochure might feel right at home, If “home” was built on a foundation of lies, murder, and was available in four easy payments.
The Good
The Good: The Hive is a very well-written book. Gregg Olsen is a prolific author, and clearly practice makes perfect.
More to the point, I am in love with the care and skill Mr. Olsen takes in creating and rounding out the characters. He gives them all motivations and backstory and personalities efficiently without any of it feeling (or reading) like an exposition dump.
Gregg Olsen also clearly did his research. He knows the ins and outs of how large TV shopping channels work (in this case, a barely disguised HSN). He knows how campgrounds are run, and he seems to have a good ear for how other things work.
Gregg is also not afraid to pile on the bodies. He juggles a lot of characters (perhaps too many… see below) and even the most minor characters get a decent amount of background and motivation. Even the cat killed when the female empowerment cult burns down the childhood friend’s house gets a callout (RIP Sprinkles).
I really liked our main character, Detective Lindsay Jackman, who is investigating the death of a college reporter outside of Bellingham while recovering from the suicide of her father figure and the failure of her own marriage.
Lindsay is both a relatable character and someone who is clearly under a ton of pressure from various places and at a turning point in her life. One could easily see the pressure of her failed marriage, her partner’s suicide and this case breaking her.
The Bad
The Bad: Alas, Detective Lindsay Jackman is not long for the book. Yes, we lose our police detective protagonist. Oh, she is not dead or missing, just AWOL from her own book as we hop from one Hive member to another as we hear about various coverups. By the time we are getting background on a Hive member’s campaign managers estranged husband, one has to wonder if we are a little lost in the weeds.
This lack of a character to focus on in the second half hobbles the story a bit. The Hive uses a very omniscient narrator, and being a murder mystery, The Hive keeps a lot of things close to the vest. But some characters seem to be completely different people at the end of the book than they were initially.
I don’t mean they had growth, mind you. The dead college reporter (our initial focus) is described all over the map. I understand people show different sides to different people, but none of the characters, especially Detective Jackman, seem concerned about the shockingly unique descriptions.
Lindsey’s partner, who killed himself, also goes through a personality reveal that stretches credulity. Since the story has not focused on Lindsey in the second half, such reveals do not have the emotional weight that they should have.
The Ugly
The Ugly: The issue I had with 2016’s Marauders rears its head. (The rich and powerful rarely show up at police interviews without lawyers if they show up at all.)
Some books, particularly Agatha Christie-style novels, solve this issue by having everyone snowed in at a cabin or (checks notes) snowed in on a train. Anyway, the murder just happened, and they are snowed in.
At the end of The Hive, our detective simply calls all the hive members from around the country to the conference table at the police station, and they immediately start gleefully telling on each other and confessing unprovable murders.
In Conclusion
In Conclusion: While the Hive does not quite stick the landing, it is a very enjoyable ride. Well-researched and extremely well written The Hive is an easy recommendation for a fun thriller. I am looking forward to my next Gregg Olsen book.
Random Notes from reading
I sense I am about to add another author to my read all their books’ list. Gregg Olsen is a prolific author, and clearly practice makes perfect. I am way too early to know if I am going to like the plot. And if this is a secret killer bee novel, it is hiding it well. But I am in love with the characters.
More to the point, I am in love with the care and skill Mr. Olsen takes in creating and rounding out the characters. He manages to give them all motivations and backstory and personalities efficiently without any of it feeling (or reading) like an exposition dump.
Skillful is the key phrase so far. I am very much looking forward to reading some more tonight. Looks like a police procedural/ murder ,mystery so far with plenty of drama, but we shall see. I would not be surprised if the book takes a turn or two.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Well we have met the Medical Examiner. Is it a woman? Of course it is a woman. It is always a woman. The last make medical examiner in fiction was Jack Klugman’s Quincy. Is she quirky? Not so much. She is described as the most beautiful and richest woman in town who has forgone a life of leisure to cut open dead bodies for the local government…. Okay maybe a little quirky.
Our apparent lead, is a somewhat less quirky (so far) police detective is on the scene and we have discovered the body is that of a missing college student. Our heroine is still trying to overcome the suicide of her police partner and her recent divorce from a cheating spouse. Characters are still deep and well written and despite my slightly snide comments regarding the medical examiner she is a lot better drawn than most examples in fiction.
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So we are coming a bit more into focus. The author is doing a great job with background and efficient inner monologue of characters both important and not important (possibly) keeping us on our toes.
As for plot, is seems our dead girl was investigating the woman described in the opening. (The one carried by bees). Our detective gets a call from a man whose wife he believes was murdered by the same woman, and it is felt she runs a cult outside of Bellingham on an island. She is beautiful and rich (though not coroner beautiful and rich) and she is dangerous. Super kudos to having her be a celebrity featured on shopping channels.
I could easily see one of the lunatics on the shopping channels offering elixirs of youth made from bee pollen (or goats mil or green tea) to be secret psychopaths running a themed death cult. In fact, I assume most of them are.
Writing is excellent, pacing is good, and the story, despite time jumps and a multitude of characters, is fairly easy to follow. Kudos all the way around so far, The Hive is a smashing tale.
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A lot of focus in the last few chapters on the 1999 tale. The wife left her husband and two kids to run off to Washington. The husband sells the house to follow her. The wife seems to make up with the husband but is only interested in the community property proceeds and then accuses him of holding out 18k on her. They have a fight. She is found dead, and despite having a solid alibi, he is put on trial for her murder.
There is a lot of bitterness that comes through these chapters. I don’t know if it is skilled storytelling or if the author opened a vein from his own life and let it bleed on the page. Seems almost personal that way. Without any more info, I have to chalk it up to excellent writing. But I am still curious.
That is where we are in the mystery. Our heroine has not actually met the Shopping Channel bee lady (the shopping channel in not mentioned in the book so far but think QVC or HSN) I am enjoying the read, and I am impressed how the author jumps around in time seamlessly. Unless there is a serious fumble later in the story, I seriously see myself reading more of his work.
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So we have the cop interviewing the washed-up movie star that was friends (and a lover) to the as yet unmet Bee lady. Couple of huhs… Not criticisms but huhs… Gregg Olsen so far is a very G-rated writer. The lesbian affair and sex is hinted at lightly with enthusiasm. It is well done, mind you, as is all his writing, but I realise for a book involving murder, cults and naked bodies found in ravines and the surf the book’s heat level is room temperature at best and the book is very clean and polite. Not a criticism and I am actually impressed at the skill used to keep it this way rather than going for the cheap and sometimes awkward sex and violence.
The other huh is the movie star reporting the actions of the dead girl when she faked her way into her house to interview her. The dead girls actions and attitude are almost the polar opposite of how others have described her in the narrative. Again, this could be just my interpretation, or Olsen might be setting up a reveal based on this. Not all of us act the same around everyone, and not all narrators are truthful, especially when referring to the recently and tragically deceased.
Still a huh from me on that. The Hive so far is interesting and moving at a good pace. I like the depth of the characters and how seeming unrelated scenes come into focus a few chapters later. Enjoying my journey so far.
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It was HSN. Gregg Olsen did his research down to knowing that the hosts travel by wheelchair so they don’t have to walk in their heels. Really, a fascinating read. Our detective is interviewing all the surviving members of the Hive. Two dead so far under mysterious circumstances. And none of them are talking to each other or the queen bee. There is clearly something going on.
Our author is omnipresent, so we hear the cold interaction and agreements between the Hive members. He is keeping the cards close enough to not give up the mystery, but we know something is rotten.
We also spend time with the background of two secondary characters, one a former reporter that stoked the fires during the murder trial of the husband with the half-truths he put in the paper. He is now the manager of a forgotten museum. And we have the cub editor at the Bellingham college who seems to be following in his footsteps making the same mistakes.
Gregg Olsen does a fantastic job with the background of these two, and despite a quiet promise I made myself earlier in this review, I have to invoke The Rats as an example of really making these secondary characters stand out.
Excellent read so far, and I am really enjoying the book.
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So we get some background about Marnie and her encounter with the bees. We see an encounter between herself and her mother and get the full background of her bee encounter and the miracle that everyone seems to buy into. (The miracle is that she was not stung and the bees seem to talk to her. How this is different from those people who used to make bee beards on That’s Incredible is unknown at this time.)
Everyone is well drawn and seems to be a piece of work. Much like the author seems to have a good handle on the inner workings of a shopping channel TV studio, he also seems to know how RV parks work as that is where Marnie’s independent mother now works.
There are some asides where the mother is still protecting her daughter and another where the mother stole her daughter’s Picasso painting in an act of defiance. (An act she proudly tells our lady cop hero about.) Giving our cop some clues and closure is not on the agenda.
Speaking of closure, our heroine is also looking for answers in her partner/ father figure’s suicide. She has interactions with his just-adult son and his widow. She is upset she did not see this coming and is surprised a man like that did not leave a note. We learn through the widow that he actually left two notes but are not told the contents. She hides this fact, for reasons yet unexplained from our heroine.
Our heroine is on the trail, but everyone has their own agenda, some obvious and some hidden, and all are hiding information from her. She is truly in the dark. But with persistence and the good fortune of having no other cases to work on, she is slowly peeling away the onion.
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We get a lot more background with the actress, and it gets even slightly steamy. Alas I have a small nit to pick…. We seem to be putting all the pieces in place, mind you, but we are taking our sweet time about it. The pacing seems to have slowed a bit too much for my taste.
Don’t get me wrong, I am very much enjoying myself, but the train, while on track, is clearly stuck at the station taking on water and coal. I hope we get going soon.
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You know I am beginning to think this Bee lady is not on the up and up. So we learn about her brother, who mysteriously dies of an overdose just as he was about to inherit a chunk of the farm. It is basically told to us that Bee lady shall we say, offed him when he literally came to collect with his paperwork.
That combined with a baby missing from one of the murder victims, and I am starting to wonder what she is putting in that cream.
Oh and we got a clear view of what she said on HSN. (A model had a Downs Syndrome child, and Marnie claimed that it was okay God sometimes makes mistakes.) And then she doubles down on the statement on air instead of apologizing and stating she misspoke.
It is a realistic mistake and a believable fall from grace. A nice touch for a book that is certainly painting her as a possibly supernatural serial killer. Well, maybe that is a bit much. We shall see. But if a giant hallucinatory bee shows up like in The Swarm, I will both be not surprised and equally delighted.
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Another encounter with an old hive member and some more background. This time it is a former nurse who became a congresswoman and now is running for Senate. She is worried her friendship/affair with Marnie will become public, causing her to lose her race.
Marnie is hitting her up for money as she has with the other Hive girls. (At least those not dead). Marnie is using a touch of psychological domination and more than a touch of blackmail.
It is amazing how much all the women of the Hive despise their leader and yet are still drawn to her and despise each other as well. It is a very interesting dynamic, and much like the incident on the shopping channel that was eventually revealed, we are seeming getting much closer to the reveal of the inciting incident for the group.
We also now learn why Marnie recruited mostly nurses for her hive. She uses the placenta and umbilical cord fluid in her magical de-aging cream. So the nurses would “steal” these from the hospital for production. Stem cells is the call out here.
Still a cult leader but The Hive seems to be hedging its bets about whether she is a charlatan as well.
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The cover-up is worse than the crime. Isn’t that usually the case? We have our senator lady speaking with Greta in her glass house (I see what you did there, Gregg Olsen) paid for by blackmailing Marnie, and we get the final scoop promised above. The fellow Hive member died naturally in childbirth. There was an issue where Marnie wanted fresh afterbirth so the other girls pretended that the ferry was not running, but in reality when you go midwife you are taking some risks you would not be otherwise taken.
The issue is, of course, they hid the body (or bodies I am still unclear what happened to the baby or if it even dies as well) and there is a photo of Greta and the senator to be unloading the body floating around somewhere out there. (Confusingly the estranged husband of the Senator’s campaign manager has a copy. Which honestly is one more character than The Hive can comfortably handle)
The issue is the trial of the ex-husband for murder and falsified DNA evidence that could not exist and the silent complicity of the hive during this period. That is the cover-up side of things that really could come home to roost. Now we have a cub reporter who seems to have a copy of the incriminating photo and an idea of the truth, and the genuine mystery is who (or whom) murdered her.
We also learn that Marnie’s childhood friend, who was suspicious of both her origin story and the idea her face cream differed from anything one could find at CVS was possibly murdered along with her husband with ye olde cut brake on the mountain pass trick. It is clear that Marnie or one of her buzzing army burned down the woman’s house and killed her cat. (Rip Sprinkles).
So we have even more potential murders by Marnie and certainly some cover-ups. More background, and while the author seems to be treading water her and there and introducing new characters at a steady rate all is being revealed slowly but surely.
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We are not quite treading water. More swimming in the general direction of the conclusion but a bit in circles. One nitpick is there is no real central character at the moment. We lost our police detective protagonist. Oh, she is not dead or missing, just AWOL from the book as we hop from one hive member to another as we hear about the coverup of the accidental death.
None of this is bad, and the writing is still top-notch. What is missing is an anchor for the story. Maybe I am being picky and a bit of a traditionalist. Looking forward to see how Gregg Olsen pulls it all together in a satisfying conclusion. Easier said than done, of course.
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And we are done… Excellent book. Did it hit the landing? Mostly yes… That issue I had with 2016’s Marauders rears its head. (The rich and powerful rarely show up to police interviews without lawyers if they show up at all.)
Some books, particularly Agatha Christie-style novels, solve this issue by having everyone snowed in at a cabin or (checks notes) snowed in on a train. Anyway, the murder just happened, and they are snowed in.
At the end of The Hive, our detective simply calls all the hive members from around the country to the conference table at the police station, and they immediately start telling on each other.
Plot issues? Well, on the plus side, the suicide note hints from earlier comes back in a big way. The story is a touch convoluted. (No one looked for the baby even though Caliste was visibly pregnant, and Mr Magoo would have noticed she had just given birth during the autopsy.) There are a lot a people getting away with murder.
If there is something that still dings The Hive is the fact that we lose the detective in the second half of the book, which hurts the story. The narrative is very omnipresent, but we away from what should be the center of the story (the detective ultimately betrayed by her friends and her mentor/ detective partner) that the ending honestly lacks a touch of personal stakes. There seems to be a lack of an emotional core in the story when all is said and done.
Still an extremely well-written and researched book, that was a fun and breezy read even if it did not grip me in the end as much as I thought it was going to. Looks like I have another new author to read.