Book Review:
Title: If We Were Villains
Author: M.L. Rio
Publisher: Titan Books
“But that is how a tragedy like ours or King Lear breaks your heart—by making you believe that the ending might still be happy, until the very last minute.”
Oliver Marks has just served ten years for the murder of one of his
closest friends – a murder he may or may not have committed. On the day
he’s released, he’s greeted by the detective who put him in prison.
Detective Colborne is retiring, but before he does, he wants to know
what really happened ten years ago.
As a young actor studying Shakespeare at an elite arts conservatory,
Oliver noticed that his talented classmates seem to play the same roles
onstage and off – villain, hero, tyrant, temptress – though Oliver felt
doomed to always be a secondary character in someone else’s story. But
when the teachers change up the casting, a good-natured rivalry turns
ugly, and the plays spill dangerously over into life.
When tragedy strikes, one of the seven friends is found dead. The rest face their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless.