THE DARK LOTTERY

Awards & Accolades Our Verdict GET IT by Mike Stetz ‧ RELEASE DATE: yesterday A dynamic cast of characters headlines this grim but absorbing mystery. Awards & Accolades Our Verdict GET IT In Stetz’s thriller, a struggling alcoholic digs into his brother’s accidental death—which may have been murder. Conrad “Connie” Keen was just a kid when his older brother, Kenny, died. Kenny had been partying with friends on the Ocean Beach pier in San Diego and apparently fell to his death. Connie was so shaken by the fatal event that he ultimately became an alcoholic. He perpetually fears what he calls the dark lottery, “strange, freakish, horrific deaths” like tripping into a dishwasher filled with knives—even reading about such a death can send him on a bender. (His diet consists of little more than cereal and peanut butter, as he’s too fearful of eating other foods—salmonella poisoning from eggs may be rare, “but it happens”). One day, a woman named Lucy brings Connie news: Her late sister, who was at the pier that night, confessed on her deathbed that Kenny was, in fact, pushed. That’s disturbing enough to throw Connie into another bender, and it does. When he recovers, he vows to t...