Real Easy: A Novel

Marie Rutkoski

Jan 2022 · Macmillan Audio · Narrated by Eva Kaminsky

About this audiobook

Includes a bonus conversation between the author and narrator.

A compulsive, tenacious, and unexpectedly hopeful thriller set in a midwestern strip club, told by New York Times bestselling author Marie Rutkoski in the spirit of Gillian Flynn and Tana French

It’s 1999, and Samantha has danced for years at the Lovely Lady strip club. She’s not used to taking anyone under her wing—after all, between her disapproving boyfriend and his daughter, who may as well be her own child, she has enough to worry about. But when Samantha overrides her better judgment to drive a new dancer home, they are run off the road. The police arrive at the scene of the accident—but find only one body.

Georgia, another dancer, is drawn into the investigation as she tries to assist Holly, a Harvard-educated detective with a complicated story of her own. As the point of view shifts from police officers and detectives to club patrons and children, the women round up a list of suspects, all the while grappling with their own understandings of loss and love.

Drawing on her personal experiences as well as interviews with police, Rutkoski immerses us in a subculture that is all too often reduced to cliché. Gripping, deeply feminist, and character-driven, Real Easy spellbinds us and gets to the heart of this timeless question: How do women live out their lives knowing that men can hurt them?

A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company.

Ratings and reviews

The narrarator could have done more in her pitch to distinguish some of the characters. Story was okay but I found it difficult staying interested at times.

About the author

Born in Illinois, Marie Rutkoski is a graduate of the University of Iowa and Harvard University. She is a professor of English literature at Brooklyn College and a New York Times bestselling author of books for children and young adults. She lives in Brooklyn with her family.