Christopher Pike and the ’80s Teen Thriller

5 Favorite Young Adult Suspense Novels

Christopher Pike books were already somewhat vintage when I was a teenager in the mid-2000s. I found most of my copies either at the local library or second-hand at Half Price Books. In the wake of the recent Netflix adaptation of Pike’s The Midnight Club, hopefully these books are seeing a resurgence in popularity. I have not seen the Netflix series. I’m under the impression the show was inspired by the book – which does not rank among my top Pike novels – rather than fully adapted. While the author often delves into the supernatural, my favorite novels are pure thrillers with no science fiction or fantasy elements.

As an adult looking back, I am a bit shocked at the somewhat mature content in these books I was reading as a teenager. However, I believe Pike was before his time in the way he wrote about real-life problems facing teenagers, such as body image issues, complicated sibling relationships, terminal and chronic illnesses, disabilities, depression and suicide, unrequited love, interracial dating, and racial discrimination while trying to ultimately convey a positive message and impart life lessons. The intensity of these issues is juxtaposed with the horrors of the mystery surrounding a group of teens – usually, a traumatic incident buried in the past. The following list includes my favorite Christopher Pike novels which all follow this formula.

1 | Last Act

Melanie Martin is new to the small, rural town of Careville, Iowa and lands a role in the upcoming high school play, a murder mystery in which her character shoots another girl, Rindy, onstage. The gun is supposed to fire blanks but on opening night, someone switches the bullets, and Rindy dies for real. At first, it seems like an accident. When someone later tries to frame her for murder, Melanie sets out to uncover details surrounding a past tragic accident that has created current tensions among her fellow actors and may have provided a motive for killing Rindy.

This was my first Christopher Pike novel, and it will forever be my favorite. I have re-read it countless times over the years. It may have been one of the first murder mysteries I read as a tween after transitioning from Nancy Drew books. I’m partial to the school play aspect of the story since I was in various drama club productions off-and-on throughout my academic career. I have also experienced being the shy new kid at school, so I can relate to the main character. I found the plot clever and suspenseful. Early scenes that seem like exposition or filler end up being key to the set-up of the murder. None of the characters are who they appear to be at face value; they all have secrets and hidden facets the reader comes to learn throughout the story. Overall, it’s a fantastic teen thriller! My Goodreads Rating: 5 Stars

2 | Weekend

With graduation approaching, a group of high school students take a road trip to spend a long weekend at a friend’s vacation home in Mexico. The entire senior class is supposed to arrive, but someone has orchestrated the weekend to include only the people who were present at a disastrous party the previous fall where a girl was poisoned. She is currently undergoing dialysis and faces imminent kidney failure. As the weekend grows more ominous, it becomes clear that someone is seeking answers and revenge for the events of the fateful party.

Weekend broaches the subject of teen partying and peer pressure, exploring the potential tragic consequences. In this novel, a typical “goody two-shoes” teen is coerced by her friends to chug a beer, which turns out to have insecticide in it. No one takes her seriously when she says it tastes awful and doesn’t feel well after drinking it. By the time she is taken to the hospital her kidneys are irreparably damaged, and she needs a kidney transplant to save her life. The mystery of the novel delves into how the insecticide got into the beer. Was it truly an accident or did someone intentionally try to commit murder?

My Goodreads Rating: 4 Stars

3 | Chain Letter

One year after a disturbing incident on a deserted highway following a concert, a group of teenagers receive a chain letter from someone who knows what took place that night. The sender threatens to expose the teens’ secret if they don’t comply with the terms dictated in the letter. At first, the instructions are merely pranks but they begin to escalate in severity, as do the consequences for not following through with the commands. As the notion of a witness to the incident grows unlikely, the group of teens begins to suspect the blackmailer is one of them.

The hard-hitting topic of this novel deals with terminal illness, the unanswerable questions surrounding it, such as whether it is a punishment for past wrongs, and how someone young reconciles themself to inevitable mortality. Towards the end of the novel, the stakes become profoundly high for not acceding to the blackmailer’s demands. The characters are forced to either turn themselves into the authorities or root out the blackmailer among them to put an end to the disastrous repercussions.

My Goodreads Rating: 3 Stars

4 | Slumber Party

A group of high school girlfriends plan a weekend ski trip and find themselves snowed in by a massive storm. The gathering mimics the same guest list as a tragic slumber party years ago in which an accidental fire severely burned one of the girls, leaving her permanently scarred, and killed her younger sister. The events of the past come back to haunt the snowbound reunion as unsettling incidents begin to occur.

The build-up to the big reveal was not as exciting in this story as in some of Pike’s other novels, but I appreciated the twist at the end. The initial series of “frightening” incidents seemed somewhat mild, only to suddenly throw the main characters into a tense, life-or-death situation at the climax. The underlying social issue which ignites the thriller plot line is body image, specifically the terrible burn scars of one character who feels robbed of her beauty, and another character who struggles with being overweight. I felt Pike’s handling of the topic concerning the pressure teen girls feel to fit society’s definition of attractive was commendable.

My Goodreads Rating: 3 Stars

5 | Fall into Darkness

High school student Sharon McKay is on trial for the murder of her best friend, Ann Rice, despite her body not being found. But the police believe Ann was pushed off a cliff during a camping trip, and other witnesses overheard an argument right before she disappeared. Simultaneously, in flashbacks, the reader learns Ann is plotting to fake her own death with the goal of framing Sharon as revenge for her younger brother’s recent suicide.

Prior to the Netflix adaptation of The Midnight Club, this was the only Christopher Pike book to make it to the screen. A 1996 made-for-TV movie, the film quality is rather poor. The characters, basic plot points, and twists are preserved while changing or adding minor details. The linear storytelling format of the movie gives away the real culprit sooner than the book. The most questionable change made Sharon and Ann mere acquaintances rather than the best friends they were in the novel. I thought this took away from Ann’s motivation to frame Sharon for murder, her love for her friend turning to hate after her brother kills himself over his unrequited love for Sharon. It also eradicates the sting of betrayal on Sharon’s end by being set up by someone she believed was her best friend.

I thought the novel Fall into Darkness had a clever set-up between Sharon’s trial in the present and Ann’s plotting in the past, to the point where the storylines meet. The last third of the book unravels how everything went awry and what really happened to Ann the night of her disappearance. Once again Pike handles common problems teens face such as jealousy and one-side crushes to heavier topics like suicide, turning them into a setting for horror that provides a moral lesson about how seeking revenge for past wrongs – real or perceived – will only lead to tragedy.

My Goodreads Rating: 4 Stars

Honorable Mention | Final Friends Trilogy

Two sisters throw a party as an introductory social gathering when two Los Angeles high schools merge and form a new student population. By the end of the night, the younger sister is shot in an apparent suicide. Some of those close to her believe she was depressed and accept the police’s verdict. One of her friends, however, is certain she did not kill herself and sets out to prove her innocence and unmask the real culprit.

What I appreciate most about this trilogy is the extra breathing room for character development that can be lacking in a standalone thriller under 250 pages. I found the diversity of the cast of characters from ethnic backgrounds to socioeconomic circumstances to be quite interesting and forward-thinking for a book series written in the late 1980s. This trilogy touches on a wide array of topics teens face from pursuing athletic or academic excellence and popularity to depression, alcoholism, unplanned pregnancy, mental illness, and racial discrimination. The core mystery spans three novels, so the pacing is slower than a typical Pike novel, but I think it’s worth the trade-off of less suspense for more fleshed-out characters.

My Overall Goodreads Rating: 4 Stars