What happens when your childhood bedtime stories involve body disposal instead of fairy godmothers? Amy K. Green’s second novel, Haven’t Killed in Years, delivers a thriller that dissects this unsettling question with surgical precision and unexpected humor. Published by Berkley in November 2025, this psychological thriller introduces readers to Gwen Tanner, a woman whose biggest achievement might be the twenty years she has spent successfully pretending to be ordinary.
Gwen works an unremarkable job in financial services recruiting. She spends her free time at Painting Pots, meticulously crafting bowls she will never keep. She wears J.Crew outlet clothes so nobody suspects the darkness coiled beneath her carefully constructed normalcy. But Gwen Tanner does not exist. She is Marin Haggerty, the daughter of convicted serial killer Abel Haggerty, and someone has started leaving severed body parts on her doorstep with handwritten notes that cut straight to the bone.
A Voice That Cuts Both Ways
Green has crafted a protagonist who refuses to be pitied. Gwen narrates her own investigation with the detached observation of someone who learned to catalog human suffering before she learned long division. Her internal monologue oscillates between dark comedy and genuine menace, creating a reading experience that feels simultaneously uncomfortable and impossible to abandon.
The writing style demands attention. Green employs short, punchy sentences that mirror Gwen’s fractured psyche while allowing moments of dark levity to breathe between tense sequences. When Gwen describes following her mother through a grocery store twenty years after their last encounter, or when she finds herself attracted to a woman whose family her father slaughtered, the prose never flinches from its own implications.
This tonal balance represents both the novel’s greatest strength and occasional weakness. Some readers may find the humor jarring when placed against genuinely disturbing content. Green walks a razor’s edge between thriller and dark comedy, and while she mostly maintains her footing, there are moments where the whiplash between tones disrupts the narrative’s momentum.
The Supporting Cast: Friends, Stalkers, and Everyone In Between
The novel populates Gwen’s carefully isolated world with characters who threaten her anonymity in different ways:
- Dominic Joyce runs the only Abel Haggerty murder tour in Boston and has somehow gained visiting privileges with her father. His motivations remain murky throughout much of the narrative, keeping readers guessing whether he represents ally, threat, or something far more complicated.
- Porter works at Painting Pots and provides much-needed comic relief as an enthusiastic young man whose fascination with true crime threatens to draw Gwen into the spotlight she desperately avoids.
- Elyse Abbington survived the massacre that killed her family when she was eight years old. Her reappearance in Gwen’s orbit creates electric tension, particularly as their relationship evolves in unexpected directions.
- Natalie Shea, a childhood roommate from the facility where Gwen was placed after her parents’ arrest, haunts the narrative in ways that become increasingly significant as the plot unfolds.
Green excels at making each character serve multiple purposes within the story architecture. Nobody exists simply to fill space or deliver exposition. Even minor figures like Jake and his true crime obsessed friends contribute to the novel’s exploration of society’s uncomfortable fascination with violence.
True Crime Fandom Under the Microscope
Haven’t Killed in Years operates on multiple levels simultaneously. On the surface, it delivers a satisfying thriller about a woman hunting a killer who knows her secrets. Beneath that surface, Green conducts a scathing examination of true crime culture and the people who consume violence as entertainment.
The Abel Haggerty murder tour serves as a particularly effective vehicle for this critique. Watching Gwen sit in the back of Dominic’s van while tourists flip through crime scene photos of her father’s victims creates deeply uncomfortable moments that force readers to examine their own consumption of similar content. Green never lectures, but the implication remains clear throughout: we are all complicit in turning tragedy into spectacle.
Structure and Pacing Considerations
The novel divides into three parts, with the second introducing significant backstory through flashbacks to Gwen’s years at the facility. This structural choice occasionally disrupts the thriller momentum that the first part establishes. Readers eager to discover the identity of Gwen’s stalker may find themselves impatient during extended sequences of childhood memory.
However, these flashbacks prove essential to understanding the twisted dynamics between Gwen and Natalie. Green rewards patient readers with revelations that recontextualize earlier events and deepen the emotional stakes of the present-day confrontation.
The ending delivers twists that feel earned rather than manufactured, though some may wish for additional resolution regarding certain secondary characters. Green leaves deliberate ambiguity in places, suggesting that neat conclusions would betray the messy reality of her subject matter.
Amy K. Green’s Sophomore Effort
Green’s debut novel, The Prized Girl (2020), established her talent for crafting sarcastic, damaged protagonists investigating dark secrets in New England settings. Haven’t Killed in Years shares DNA with that earlier work while demonstrating significant growth in ambition and scope.
Where The Prized Girl examined the aftermath of violence within a family, Haven’t Killed in Years expands its lens to consider how violence reverberates across generations and communities. Green has matured as a storyteller, trusting readers to keep pace with morally ambiguous characters and refusing to provide easy answers about nature versus nurture.
The Boston setting pulses with authenticity throughout. From the cramped apartments of converted houses to the specific geography of train routes and neighborhoods, Green writes her home territory with the confidence of genuine familiarity.
Critical Assessment
The novel succeeds more often than it stumbles, but imperfections exist. Certain plot mechanics strain credibility, particularly regarding how easily characters infiltrate secure locations or access sealed records. The romance subplot, while refreshing in its queerness, sometimes feels underdeveloped compared to the thriller elements surrounding it.
Additionally, readers seeking a traditional thriller may be disappointed by Green’s insistence on psychological complexity over action. Long stretches pass without violence while Gwen navigates complicated emotional terrain. This deliberate pacing serves the character study but may frustrate those expecting constant momentum.
Final Verdict: Who Should Read This Book
Haven’t Killed in Years will resonate strongly with readers who appreciate:
- Morally complex protagonists who refuse redemption arcs
- Dark humor woven through genuinely disturbing subject matter
- Examinations of inherited trauma and identity construction
- New England gothic atmosphere with contemporary settings
- True crime narratives that question the genre’s ethical implications
Those seeking straightforward thrillers with clear heroes and villains should look elsewhere. Green has no interest in providing comfort or easy answers. She wants readers slightly nauseated, slightly entertained, and thoroughly uncertain about their own moral positioning.
Similar Reads for Fans of This Novel
Readers who appreciate Haven’t Killed in Years may also enjoy these comparable titles:
- My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing explores a suburban couple’s murderous partnership with similar dark humor
- The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager combines camp settings with unreliable narration and buried trauma
- The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter examines how violence shapes daughters into adults
- No Exit by Taylor Adams delivers claustrophobic thriller tension with morally complicated characters
- Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter tackles family secrets and inherited darkness with unflinching prose
- You by Caroline Kepnes pioneered the darkly funny, morally repugnant narrator that Green channels effectively
Amy K. Green has established herself as a distinctive voice in psychological suspense. Haven’t Killed in Years confirms that her debut was no accident while suggesting even more ambitious work may follow. For readers willing to sit with discomfort and laugh at inappropriate moments, this novel delivers something genuinely memorable: a thriller that makes you question whether you should be enjoying it at all.
