As someone who enjoys a good family drama with a side of mystery, I was intrigued by Megan Abbott’s latest novel, “El Dorado Drive”. The premise of three sisters in Detroit, desperate to turn their fortunes around by joining an exclusive women’s club promising empowerment—and danger—sounded promising. And Abbott, known for her sharp character work and atmospheric storytelling, certainly delivered a compelling portrait of sisterhood, family secrets, and economic decline.
The novel’s strength lies in its vivid depiction of Detroit’s decaying urban landscape and the nuanced relationships among the Bishop sisters—Pam, Debra, and Harper. Abbott masterfully explores themes of class, loss, and resilience, capturing how middle-aged women navigate financial hardships they never anticipated. I appreciated how she portrays these women with empathy and depth, especially in their struggles with medical bills, divorce, and secret debts. The backstory of Detroit’s auto industry boom and bust adds a rich layer of context, grounding their personal crises in a broader economic narrative.
The storyline, at least in its first half, reads more like a slow-burn family drama than a thriller, which I found refreshing. It’s about the quiet desperation, the unspoken resentments, and the bonds that hold these sisters together—elements I found quite compelling. Abbott’s portrayal of these women’s complex emotions and the subtle tensions within their relationships kept me engaged, and the novel made me reflect on the fragility of family ties and the societal pressures faced by women in mid-life.
However, where the novel lost me was in its shift toward a murder mystery. Once the murder occurred and everyone became a suspect, the story veered into more conventional thriller territory. The intricate web of motives, alibis, and red herrings felt somewhat disconnected from the powerful character study that preceded it. I found the mystery elements to be somewhat contrived, and the pacing suffered as a result. It felt like the story was trying to do too much—covering family secrets, economic struggles, and now a murder—without fully satisfying any of those threads.
Overall, I enjoyed “El Dorado Drive” as a quick holiday read. It offers interesting insights into family dynamics, secrets, and the decline of the American Dream, especially through the lens of middle-aged women trying to make sense of their lives. While I appreciated Abbott’s nuanced characterisations and atmospheric setting, I think the novel’s pivot into the murder mystery genre was a bit of a misstep for me. I would recommend it to readers who enjoy character-driven stories with social commentary, but if you’re expecting a full-blown thriller, you might find it a bit uneven.

The book is suspenseful and intriguing. Somethings gave me eerie vibe. The book is compelling and characters are really interesting. Author’s writing is so good. I loved the pace of the book and something about the writing gave me warm feeling too. I couldn’t see some of the twists coming. I was definitely not expecting that ending

Set in Detroit. There are three sisters; Pam, Debra and Harper. Other than being sisters, one more thing connects them and that is their need for money so they join an exclusive women’s club but they didn’t expect a shocking death. Then the unthinkable begins to happen and mystery gets dark. I must say the story has so many layers of mystery, secrets and buried truths. As I read further, the author slowly unveiled the mystery. With each chapter, a layer of mystery unveiled. But the revelations at the end were still shocking. The book is clever, suspenseful, dark, and eerie.

Thanks to the Publisher

El Dorado Drive is typically excellent as I've come to expect from Megan Abbott- not my favourite of hers but definitely a very good read.

Family secrets abound, three sisters navigate life and of course things go horribly wrong. This is decently twisty with a great group dynamic of characters that keep you turning the pages to find out what happens to them.

The writing is superb as always, overall I thoroughly enjoyed it.

When three very different sisters seek to find solutions to their money problems define a solution that almost seems to good to be true (and is definitely not a pyramid scheme)...

Set in the decaying urban location of the once-mighty city of Detroit, the story touches on themes that range from the bones of sisterhood, of family dynamics, the challenges of mid life, and the secrets people keep from one another. Even those supposedly closest to them.

This one was a mixed bag, but provided some interesting insights into family ties and family secrets.

This book wasn’t bad and it was a quick holiday read for me but I wouldn’t have categorised it as a thriller and is much more family/neighbourhood drama with a small mystery element in the second half of the book. You have a bizarre pyramid scheme, jealousy, difficult family relationships so was enough to keep me interested to finish it.

Thank you to netgalley for providing an ecopy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoy Megan Abbots books, and I thoroughly enjoyed her new one. She is an excellent writer and really stands out from the rest. Its good, dark, creepy neighbourhood vibes, loved it xx

Megan Abbott is spectacularly good at writing about the darkness that lies beneath the polite and respectable veneer of American suburbia. Previous novels have looked at staples of polite, middle class family life such as competitive gymnastics and private schools. El Dorado Drive turns its focus to a mainstay of suburban life in late stage capitalism: pyramid schemes.

Set on the outskirts of Detroit and centred around three sisters who find themselves embroiled in a women's club called The Wheel, the book feels quasi-dystopian at times, with its images of a crumbling city, abandoned when the car industry moved production overseas, and characters who are clinging to survival with their fingernails, as healthcare costs and insecure employment drive them to take desperate measures.

A pacy thriller with characters I utterly believed in, this is one of Abbott's best yet.

Although elements are in place for a thriller/mystery – three sisters, one teenage daughter, a get-rich-quick pyramid scheme and a brutal murder – this is more of a slow-burn literary novel about family dynamics and is likely to appeal to fans of that genre.
With thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an early copy in exchange for an independent review.
Upon publication, I will post this review on my blog and on GoodReads.

This book wasn't quite what I expected, and a refreshing change from the more usual super rich characters associated with US based psychological fiction. I particularly liked the intergenerational exchanges. Abbott is a stunning writer. Not my favorite of her books, but every one is well worth a read.

Disappointing - loved her earlier books but this felt oddly rushed. Couldn’t really invest in the characters. Gave up before the big change everyone is talking about.

I have been eagerly awaiting Abbott’s latest, and it didn’t disappoint! This is a story of money and of sisterhood. As a sister myself, I could feel the rivalries and love on display between Pam, Debra and Harper bone-deep. As always with Abbott, the prose is luscious - made to be savoured - and the twists & turns are as compelling as the characters. For me, the teenaged Vivian was my favourite, and one of the most “real” teenagers I’ve read in a while. Just as real is the sense of place - I now really want to visit Grosse Pointe…!

Three sisters who had been brought up in a wealthy environment now find themself in need of money.
They are invited to join a pyramid scheme investment club to make money fast.
Unfortunately this scheme has its pitfalls and is not what they had been counting on.
A mystery thriller about greed and betrayal.
Thank you to NetGalley and Little Brown Book Group UK for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

I liked parts of this book, but it got too dramatic and I stopped caring.

It was good at showing rich sisters who lost their money. They're broke now. One's divorced, one has huge medical bills, and one has secret debt. They find a "get rich quick" plan.

The book was great at showing how families fight and love. It also showed how Detroit changed when the car industry crashed. It's about middle-class people struggling, not poor, but not rich either. It shows how hard it is for women who never had to worry about money. I felt bad for them.

But then it turned into a murder mystery. Everyone was a suspect. It felt weird and I didn't believe it. I wish it stayed about money problems, not murder.

My current clientele are all looking for books with no political bias or cultural issues. They are looking for an escape from today.’s climate and at my bookstore things with no political influence are selling far better.

The idea of the Wheel gripped me, the sisters too had their thrall, but the writing didn’t make sense to me. It felt quite jarring at times and so the book ended up becoming a slog.

The narrative about Detroit and it’s motor trade was in-depth and very true to life but this book fell down on the human element for me.

There's much I liked about this book but I guess it just took too melodramatic a turn and didn't quite carry me along to the end.

What Abbott does excellently is offer up a sympathetic portrait of the three Bishop sisters who had been born into wealth and privilege which had then been lost when their high-flying motor industry father had lost his position during the financial crisis. Now, as adults, they're still struggling with money: Pam's husband has followed in her father's footsteps and divorce has left her embittered and desperate; Debra is piling up a million dollar medical bill as her husband is battling cancer and each chemo session has to be paid for along with all the drugs; and Harper has her own secret debt that can't be revealed to her sisters. Enter The Wheel - a tax-free scheme to make money without having to do a thing...

The complicated relationships between the sisters and wider family are excellently drawn here: the jealousies, the bonds, the things that are unspoken, the love and the life-long resentments. The background of Detroit is also vividly sketched in, not least the reliance on the motor industry and the boom years for the likes of Chrysler and GM - followed by the bust. This is middle-class scraping the barrel: not downright poverty but the grind of not being able to pay the children's university fees, of a constant scrabble to keep up appearances, and that terror of mounting medical bills. Abbott is especially attentive to the effects on middle-aged women, that group who never assumed they would have to balance a budget, who might never have worked between college and a 'good' marriage - now left adrift and unresourced. To the credit of this book, I entered into a sense of empathy with these women with less judgement than I might have expected.

But where this book went off the rails for me was when it got turned into a murder mystery: suddenly everyone's a suspect and the minutiae of alibis and motives felt like too much of a disjunction with the character-led story that came before. Did I really believe the red herrings and trailing of motives? No - no, I didn't - and at that point the book and I parted company. I wish Abbott had stayed with the dark focus on the corruption of money without going quite as far as this did.

Thanks to Little Brown/Virago for an ARC via NetGalley

This book is all over the place. I read a few chapters and it was all over the place. Writing seems weird. Can’t finish it. Just not anything there for my interest.