Hey, I read a book. I do that a lot, but it’s usually one of the same dozen books over and over again. Books outside that dozen tend to bore me, and are never finished. This time it’s a book new to me, and I finished it! High praise indeed!
Guillotine
by Delilah S Dawson
(204 pp.)
Desiree ‘Dez’ Lane is 21, comes from working-class stock, and wants to be a fashion designer. For a coveted career like that, of course, nobody has a chance without the right connections, and Dez is unconnected.
She is, however, attractive. In the coincidence that sets the story in motion, she’s met Patrick Ruskin at a bar, and he gave her his name and number. Dez searches the internet, and guess what? Patrick’s mother is the famous Marie Caulfield-Ruskin, managing editor of Nouveau magazine, bible to the cultured and upscale. And their whole family is stinking rich.
A scheme is launched: Dez wants to meet Marie and maybe score a career, so she calls Patrick, and they start dating. He’s annoying, always trying to impress her with fancy dinners to buy into her pants, and Dez ain’t interested, but she strings him along with handjobs until he invites her to a weekend at the Ruskin family’s island estate.
Before setting foot on the island, Dez is required to sign a non-disclosure agreement. She signs, arrives at the estate, and is stunned by the opulence, secrecy, and the Stepfordesque behavior of everyone in the Ruskin family.
She feels awkward and out of place among the creepy, quiet gazillionaires, and Patrick is off playing polo or something. For security reasons the island doesn’t have internet access, so it looks like a boring weekend. But stuff’s gonna happen, and it won’t be boring at all.
There’s a kind of violence that is meted out over years, over generations, a a polite and civilized violence made of rules and psychological warfare and catastrophic power imbalances, a quiet violence that arrives in the night with a gently closed door and a manicured finger to soft lips. That violence is death by a thousand cuts, something almost endurable, no less violent but a lot less bloody. And then there is a kind of violence that is undeniable, sudden, animalistic, authentic, and final.
Dez is seeing the latter in person for the first time, and she begins to understand why someone invented Molotov cocktails. There’s a strange, deep glee, somewhere inside her, a spark hungry for tinder to burn. So many men have reached to touch her against her will, and she had to take it, had to accept a professor’s hand on the small of her back, an old man’s hug that goes on just a little too long, her mom’s manager fingering the hem of her dress at Thanksgiving and telling her she looks so grown up. She has silently longed to bite their fingers off and spit them back. Watching someone else take that privilege, watching the servants exact their revenge…
Dez doesn’t hate it.
Despite the title, no guillotine appears in the story, but there’s ample violence, as the curtain is drawn back on the lifestyles of the rich and famous. The blood and gore is exquisite, and cathartic.
Very few, perhaps none, are the moments where Dez or Dawson make a philosophical point that causes the reader to stare into deep thoughts. That’s not this book, but also not the intent. This is a thriller, the kind of novel that keeps you eager to read what happens next, and on that level it’s an absolute success.
Guillotine doesn’t go on my short shelf of books to be re-devoured and re-appreciated annually, but it delivers a delicious slice of what the world needs now.
Verdict: YES.
♦ ♦ ♦
A few years back, I wrote a rave review of a bar of soap — Doc Bronner’s. It’s still the best bar of soap there is, but at about five bucks per bar, it’s pricey, so a few years back I gradually switched to Shugar brand, usually available for $1.25.
Or it was. A Few weeks ago, trying to buy more, I learned that Shugar has gone out of business. Their now-abandoned website has been hijacked, so I won’t provide a link, but their going-away message said that “after 59 years, it’s become impossible to make a profit in this business environment.” No further details were provided, so my guess is that Trump’s tariffs sank Shugar.
Which sucks, and double-sucks because now I’m spending five bucks a bar for Doc Bronner’s again.
The cheapskate in me wants to spend less, so I’m on the prowl to switch soaps, and begging for your recommendations please. Three requirements:
① It’s gotta be bar soap, not something your squirt from a bottle,
② Minimal kooky chemicals, which rules out all the major brands,
and ③ a scent that doesn’t make me retch.
And here’s the big enticement: If your suggestion leads me to a bar of soap I like at a better price, I’ll say thanks with a free, one-year subscription to itsdougholland.com.
10/22/2026
itsdougholland.com
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