Alyssa wants to be seen. Less wants to be someone. She takes two buses to class, posts pictures of her lunch, and pretends it’s all effortless.

He hides his privilege beneath thrifted clothes and a sketchbook full of impossible designs. Together, they are inseparable, two outsiders constructing a version of themselves the world might finally applaud.

Then Alyssa stumbles upon the hidden world of phrogging – living unnoticed inside other people’s homes. She and Less slip through Los Angeles’ glossy veneer: influencers, producers, pop stars, all so busy performing their perfect lives they don’t notice the shadows in their attics, the scratching in their walls.

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An act of rebellion. A harmless thrill. A social experiment.

Until they choose the wrong house.

Until the influencer they idolise catches them in the act.

Until the cameras, already rolling, capture everything.

What begins as a reckless adventure becomes a nightmare of lies, power and the cost of visibility. Bad Influence is a breathtakingly tense, darkly funny thriller about the lives we curate, the secrets we hide, and the monsters made by the need to be seen.

My Review

Having just finished listening to Carver’s first two January David books, and having read all his work from The Beresford onwards, Bad Influence starts off as a bit of fun, a bit of a lark. Not the usual Carver fare. Two bored twenty-something college students (more Gen Z than millennials – I’m a bit obsessed with generations) doing silly stuff together. Alyssa is poor, while best friend Less is from a wealthy family, but wants to stand on his own two feet as a milliner, designing hats for the rich and famous. Alyssa wants to be an influencer.

Then they decide – well it’s Alyssa’s idea really – to become ‘phroggers’, people who squat in other people’s houses, while the owners are living there. They are never seen, but eat the food, sleep in the attic or basement, even in the walls, and watch TV etc while the householders are out. Alyssa and Less think it’s amusing to move things around a bit, just to freak the owners out.

In the meantime, Paige of @TheFitnessPaige, is one of the top fitfam influencers. She is approached by reality TV producers Lincoln and Lowell to be filmed every day for an undisclosed sum of money, uploading the content to a server for a limited audience. They warn her that it could break her. She says it will be fine because she’s strong (when not secretly eating cold pizza and ice cream, and throwing up).

So far so good, but not very Carver. Then in a shocking twist, everything changed. I gasped. It became very sinister and unsettling, involving online searches for shovels, duct tape and heavy duty bin bags from Amazon, with the inevitable ‘how to bury a body’. Now we’re talking!

In typical Carver fashion, the humour is very dark and might not appeal to everyone, but readers of my blog know that dark humour one of my favourite genres, and Will Carver is one of my favourite authors. He never stops surprising me.

Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours

About the Author

Will Carver is the international bestselling author of the January David series and the critically acclaimed, mind-blowingly original Detective Pace series, which includes Good Samaritans (2018), Nothing Important Happened Today (2019) and Hinton Hollow Death Trip (2020), all of which were ebook bestsellers and selected as books of the year in the mainstream international press.

Nothing Important Happened Today was longlisted for both the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award 2020 and the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. Hinton Hollow Death Trip was longlisted for the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize, and was followed by the literary thrillers, The Beresford, Psychopaths Anonymous, The Daves Next Door, Suicide Thursday and Upstairs at the Beresford.

Will spent his early years in Germany, but returned to the UK at age eleven, when his sporting career took off. He and his partner run their own fitness and nutrition company, and live in Reading with five children and a tortoise.

About Orenda Books

Orenda Books is a small independent publishing company specialising in literary fiction with a heavy emphasis on crime/thrillers, and approximately half the list in translation. They’ve been twice shortlisted for the Nick Robinson Best Newcomer Award at the IPG awards, and publisher and owner Karen Sullivan was a Bookseller Rising Star in 2016. In 2018, they were awarded a prestigious Creative Europe grant for their translated books programme. Three authors, including Agnes Ravatn, Matt Wesolowski and Amanda Jennings have been WHSmith Fresh Talent picks, and Ravatn’s The Bird Tribunal was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award, won an English PEN Translation Award, and adapted for BBC Radio Four ’s Book at Bedtime. Six titles have been short- or long-listed for the CWA Daggers. Launched in 2014 with a mission to bring more international literature to the UK market, Orenda Books publishes a host of debuts, many of which have gone on to sell millions worldwide, and looks for fresh, exciting new voices that push the genre in new directions. Bestselling authors include Ragnar Jonasson, Antti Tuomainen, Gunnar Staalesen, Michael J. Malone, Kjell Ola Dahl, Louise Beech, Johana Gustawsson, Lilja Sigurðardóttir and Sarah Stovell.