Marketed as Riley Sager meets "If We Were Villains", this is a dark academia murder mystery set on a snowed-in college campus in North Carolina, where six grad students are studying the psychology of lying. Binge-reading this in a few hours led to me having weird stress dreams that I was back in college and being told I had to transfer from NC State even though I didn't want to, so that was fun. Go Pack.

The prologue of this was the transcript of a past psychological evaluation with a sociopath, and I was instantly intrigued. Don't judge me. It then segues into present day, where the six grad students conducting morally questionable experiments to study the psychology of lying and if they can prompt it in subjects by manipulating them into mental duress. This topic was something that I was hoping would be a lot more prevalent in the book, as it was such a fascinating concept. It was really used as a backdrop more than anything else, and had little bearing on the overall mystery, other than highlighting that each of the six had their own secrets to hide, and the research on exactly how to do so. Almost every character got a POV, though, and while it was interesting to get to see everyone's perspectives, I didn't feel like I got enough time with any of them to get attached to any one character, despite some of them having really compelling backstories.

I love a good locked-door mystery, which was what I was expecting here, but that's not exactly what it ended up being. The setting was great, I loved the small town NC vibes, but the snowed-in part didn't occur until after the first dead body showed up, and things happened at multiple locations.

Overall, this was a fun, quick read with eerie winter vibes, and I recommend it if you like dark academia and thrillers! I loved the concept, but only liked the execution, if that makes sense.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publishers, & the author for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.