“Night Film” by Marisha Pessl – Silver Screen Murder

Stanislas Cordova is one of the most revered underground movie directors of all time, seeing most of his movies banned from the theaters for their psychologically-disturbing subjects and depictions. One day, his daughter is found murdered, but it seems as if very few are actually giving a damn about it. 

And so, a formerly-disgraced journalist, Scott McGrath, becomes a sleuth and launches himself into an amateur investigation into the fate of the daughter, alongside his two sidekicks, Nora and Hopper. Their quest for the truth will take from the dark and unknown reaches of the internet, through the surrealistic and secret world of Cordova himself, all the way to the occult.

Night Film by Marisha Pessl is far from being your run-of-the-mill murder mystery, and one of the main reasons for that is the inclusion of various multimedia elements to it. For instance, we are, from time to time, presented with pictures originating from various websites, notes found by McGrath during his investigation, transcripts, receipts, photographs, not to mention that Ashley Cordova, the daughter, is represented by an actual model. 

This makes the book feel much more interactive, as you are given the opportunity to examine the evidence with your own eyes rather than imagine it, giving you the impression of being the detective yourself.

All of the references to literature, black magic, the occult and the world of horror movies are all very detailed, interesting, and even educative to a certain extent, without ever dragging on for too long. Pessl does a very good job at pacing her book properly (not an easy feat to achieve at over 600 pages in length), always knowing when to advance the action and when to let the reader relax and marvel for a bit.

The suspense in this story truly is nail-biting, and not only because the author knows how to create tense situations, but also because the affected characters are, for the most part, likeable, realistic and very relatable. 

It comes to the point where you literally start worrying about the main characters so much that you start considering the possibility of an early demise, and that’s something very few books have ever managed to achieve.

The only drawback to this near-perfect mystery is the lack of clues that lead nowhere. It just feels as if the characters are unraveling the trail to the truth a bit too easily, very rarely being stumped by anything put in front of them. Nevertheless, the ending manages to be quite original and unpredictable, making this book a very good mystery for fans of the genre.

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Marisha Pessl Personal site Marisha Pessl is an American writer whose most famous work remains, for the moment, her debut novel, Special Topics in Calamity Physics. She released a second novel not too long ago titled Night Film. In addition to being a writer, Pessl is also a contributing musician to The Pierces' third studio album.