Ask a Bookseller: 'Saint X' is not your typical thriller

Maya Aurichio of Maria’s Bookshop in Durango, Colo., recommends "Saint X" by Alexis Schaitkin. Aurichio read the book when it came out in 2020 and said its memorable characters have stuck with her. She called the novel a thoughtful twist on a “classic beautiful dead white girl thriller.” Claire is a child when her college-aged sister Alison goes missing on a family vacation on the tropical island of Saint X. When Alison is found dead, two men who work at the resort are blamed for her death.Eighteen years later in New York, Claire has a chance run-in with one of the accused. She befriends him to find out more information and learns a much wider story than she bargained for. “The book just blows open the story of ‘dead missing white girl’ and subverts that trope,” says Aurichio. It becomes “this really nuanced commentary on race and class and privilege.”