Recent Reads | Five and By Way of Sorrow

Five by Ilona Bannister
Genres: Adult, Mystery/Thriller
Published by Crown on May 5, 2026
Format: Audio/Physical (240 pages) • Source: Aardvark Book Club, Spotify Audiobooks
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NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “[A] sizzling summer thriller . . . a kind of morality tale, a Rorschach test for all of us.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)

Five lives. Five stories. Four will live—one will die. Who it will be? In this slow-burn masterpiece of psychological fiction, the choice is all yours.

“Five is a gripping, chilling story that asks difficult questions about judgement, forgiveness, and the notion of cause and effect.”—Chris Whitaker, New York Times bestselling author of All the Colors of the Dark

Have you ever tried to pass the time by imagining the lives of the strangers standing next to you? Ilona Bannister’s Five introduces readers to five seemingly random people waiting for a train. But these are not just any five people. From the beginning we know that one of them is going to die soon. Very soon. In five minutes the next train to London will arrive, killing one of them. But before this happens you will learn their stories.

None of these people are saints. Readers might fall in love with the beautiful young man who is on the verge of gambling his life away. They may pity the cantankerous old woman who has fallen to the ground yet is refusing help. Perhaps readers will look away from the child throwing a tantrum. Or judge his mother, who must surely be to blame. And some will be curiously compelled by the successful and damaged businessman orbiting them all.

These are the candidates for this morning’s misfortune. But they don’t know it. Only you know. And you, our complicit reader, will not be able to resist deciding who deserves to walk away, and who deserves only five more minutes to live.

An incredibly original novel that breaks the fourth wall and asks the reader to be judge, jury, and executioner, Five looks at some of the most complicated issues of contemporary life: motherhood, disability, addiction. Every stranger has a story. And in Ilona Bannister’s skillful hands, five people’s stories come together to create an unforgettable novel.

Man, this was so underwhelming and I’m bummed! I saw this book gain some steam online and get really favorable reviews, so I decided to pick it as my Aardvark book for the month. I wasn’t initially interested but the hype got to me a little bit. The premise sounds good and thrilling: you know one of the main characters (there are five of them) will die at the train stop, but won’t know who until the end. The book goes between the train platform in present day and character-based chapters that are really summaries of each character’s life. The idea is a psychological thriller (?) with a strong character study element.

Unfortunately it just didn’t work for me. I saw some reviews praising the deep psychological elements – can you forgive these people for their sins? Were you rooting for one person to die instead of the others? All of the characters have made mistakes and aren’t likable, so the reader is supposed to grapple with the morality of it all. The character chapters were just rundowns of the person’s life and the mistakes they made. Yes, they were all unlikable to various degrees but it didn’t really make me feel anything. I thought their problems were pretty stereotypical and predictable, so nothing really shocked me?

Don’t go into this book expecting a tense thriller at all. I definitely enjoyed the chapters on the train platform way more than the character ones because that’s where it actually felt like a mystery/thriller book. There weren’t any big twists or reveals, except for eventually finding out which character died.

I can give it credit because I was definitely intrigued to keep reading. I was curious to know what would happen next and what the next character study would be about. By the end though, I was just underwhelmed. No big reveals or surprises. Going in with the right mindset will help most readers but it just didn’t work for me. The premise was awesome – it’s really a book that I’d be curious to read if the premise was handed to someone else to try to execute differently.

By Way of Sorrow by Robyn Gigl
Series: Erin McCabe Mysteries #1
Genres: Adult, Mystery/Thriller
Published by Kensington Books on March 2, 2022
Format: Audio/eBook (354 pages) • Source: Hoopla
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In a fresh and riveting thriller debut, Robyn Gigl introduces Erin McCabe, a New Jersey criminal defense attorney doing her best to live a quiet life in the wake of profound personal change—until a newsworthy case puts both her career and safety in jeopardy . . .
Erin McCabe has been referred the biggest case of her career. Four months ago, William E. Townsend, Jr., son of a New Jersey State Senator, was found fatally stabbed in a rundown motel near Atlantic City. Sharise Barnes, a nineteen-year-old transgender prostitute, is in custody, and given the evidence, there seems little doubt of a guilty verdict.
As a trans woman herself, Erin knows that defending Sharise will blow her own private life wide open, and doubtless deepen her estrangement from her family. Yet she feels uniquely qualified to help Sharise, and duty-bound to protect her from the possibility of a death sentence. Because Sharise admits she killed the senator’s son—in self-defense.
As Erin works with her partner, former FBI agent Duane Swisher, circumstances hint at ties to other brutal murders. Senator Townsend is using the full force of his prestige and connections to publicly discredit everyone involved in defending Sharise. And behind the scenes, his tactics are even more dangerous. For his son had secrets that could destroy the senator’s political aspirations—secrets worth killing for . . .

The mystery/thriller book club I’m in picked this one for the month of June and it’s generally out of my norm. I don’t read legal thrillers and really didn’t know what to expect from it! The few times this book club picked something that wasn’t on my TBR, the books were super disappointing, so I was definitely nervous to dive into this one. I’m happy to say I was super pleasantly surprised!

The story follows Erin McCabe, a transgender lawyer, and her partner Swish, as they take on a highly publicized and politically-charged case – a Black transgender girl has killed the son of a prominent politician. Was it self-defense or is there something more nefarious going on? This is the first time it is made publicly known that Erin is transgender and there is a lot of “fallout” within her personal and professional spheres. The book focuses a lot on her family dynamics and relationships (both old and new – with her ex-wife and current man she is dating). I really enjoyed this element and how Erin was able to help Sharise navigate the legal system, constantly attempting to correct pronouns and working to get her name legally changed.

I’m not sure if this is true of all legal thrillers but this was not a twisty or surprising mystery. It follows a very straight path to resolution, with Erin and Swish just going through the legal avenues to support Sharise and deal with a ton of “drama” along the way. We get POVs from the villains and the main characters, so it was occasionally confusing to know whose head we were in. It was good to get background from all sides though.

It’s a slow-burn as we navigate the courts and the personal lives of the main characters. The legal drama of it all was not thrilling, but I did actually find it kind of compelling. My main complaint is that there were a LOT of characters, and plenty of times I couldn’t remember who someone was as we were in their head.

It was a great read for Pride Month and I’m glad I tried a new genre! I would be really curious to read the next book(s) at some point too.

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