Love and Death in the Sunshine State

January 15, 2018
Wood combines elements of true crime with the techniques of contemporary fiction in his bold debut, which recounts the investigation into the 2008 murder of Sabine Musil-Buehler, a Gulf Coast Florida motel owner. Wood, who was a guest at the motel when the investigation began, first sequesters the facts of the crime and lines up the persons of interest: the victim’s husband, her boyfriend, and the man who stole her car after her death. He then departs from the crime story to explore the fallibility of relationships—including his own romantic entanglements—as well as the untrustworthiness of facts in general. “As the Sarasota reporter had explained to me, if I wanted the truth, I would have to make it up,” Wood writes. Indeed, he pumps up his imagination to rework Musil-Buehler’s murder into the consequence of a doomed love affair between the victim and her killer. Wood’s impressionistic prose is on display throughout; in one particularly ambitious passage, he places the motel fire that followed the owner’s death among a history of fires including “the burning of the heretic Jan Hus, whose pyre would not catch until an old rag woman, hoping to be helpful, offered the soldiers involved her bundle of twigs.” Readers of literary nonfiction will find a promising new writer.

February 15, 2018
A fledgling writer tackles a true-crime story and, in the process, discovers some uncomfortable truths about himself.As a graduate student in the creative writing program at the University of Iowa, Wood learned of a murder and arson at the Tampa-area motel where he'd recently stayed. There was no body, weapon, or motive, but the woman, Sabine, who co-owned the motel with her estranged husband, had gone missing. Her car was found with somebody else driving it, a man with a shady past. Less than two weeks later, the motel was torched. There were three suspects: Sabine's estranged husband, her ex-con boyfriend who had done odd jobs at the motel, and the stranger driving her car. Wood felt like he didn't belong in Iowa and was suffering something of the imposter syndrome as a would-be writer with nothing to write. After his mother sent him a news clipping about the crime, he writes, "I found in this fiery motel everything necessary to write." The most conventional part of the story follows a familiar true-crime format, culminating in a confession that solves the mystery. But along the way, the book becomes more about Wood and how he stumbled into a relationship with a woman he didn't know as well as he should have. He finds eerie parallels between this relationship and the one that he imagines developed between the woman who is now missing and likely murdered and her boyfriend, a prime suspect who was returned to prison on a parole violation. As the author began to sense "the creeping entanglement" of the stories, "a sharp nausea crept over me." The narrative then shifts into Wood's projected account of exactly what happened, how the romance developed between the ex-con and the woman, and how she died. It's as much about what he sees in himself as it is about what might have happened to somebody else.Reads like a mashup of at least three different books in one, written with psychological insight and literary flair but lacking cohesion and focus.

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March 15, 2018
Part true crime and part memoir, Wood's debut, at its heart, is a work of creative nonfiction that explores the conflicts that exist within every relationship. In the small Gulf Coast Florida town of AnnaMaria, Sabine Musil-Buehler has gone missing. She and her husband own a motel, where the author is staying when the search for Sabine ramps up. When Wood returns home to his new relationship with an old school friend, he has difficulty thinking of much besides the search for Sabine. When the Musil-Buehler's motel is set ablaze, Wood returns and even befriends one of the suspects, Sabine's lover, who is currently in jail. In descriptive and impressive prose, Wood gives us his version of what happened and why. What could bring someone?seemingly caught up in the quiet monotony of daily life, just like the rest of us?to murder? Wood's focus on his own life will distract true-crime fans, who will be disappointed with the lack of actual crime or investigation. But those who appreciate style and creativity, which Wood has in abundance, will enjoy this.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)